




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


Shelf 









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The Dead Man’s Message 


Author o 


AN OCCULT ROMANCE 


BY 

FLORENCE MARRYAT 



F •' LOVE'S Conflict,” ” My Sister the Actress,” "A Bankrupt Heart,” 
“The Risen Dead,” “There is no Death,” etc., etc., etc. 




Of 




New York 

CHARLES B. REED, Publisher 
164, 166 & 168 Fulton St 


,wyRIG>r, 

^ Of 

77 ^ 


894 






Copyright, 1894, by 
AUGUSTA W. FLETCHER, M. D, 


All Rights Reserved. 


‘ Is Heaven a place or state of mind ? 
Let old experience tell. 

Love carries Heaven where’er it goes, 
And Hatred carries Hell.” 


CHARLES MACKAY. 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Professor in the Bosom of his Family, 5 

II. A Pleasant Evening, 21 

III. The Professor Begins to Live, . . . .37 

IV. What They Thought of Him, ... 49 

V. The Professor Meets His Friends, . . .64 

VI. Home Again, 79 

VH. A Face in the Camera, 92 

VHI. The Medium, 107 

IX. Susan Speaks to Madeline, . . . .124 

X. Messrs. Bunster and Robson Call, . . 135 

XI. In the Straits of Malacca 153 

XII. One Earnest Wish to Rise, .... 165 











5 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE PROFESSOR IN THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY. 

Professor Aldwyn was seated in his library, deeply 
absorbed in the perusal of an article in the latest 
number of the Fin du Siecle magazine, his slippered 
feet stretched out on a t^elvet footstool before him, in 
front of a blazing fire. It was a magnificent fire. The 
crisp, frosty March air made the huge logs crackle and 
burn till the fiery sparks flew up the wide chimney in 
a shower of brilliance. The Professor’s easy chair was 
the very easiest that can be imagined ; under his head 
was a little crimson plush bolster that fitted into the 
hollow of his neck, and his ample dressing-gown folded 
over his figure in the most luxurious fashion. In fact, 
the Professor may be said to have been completely 
comfortable. 

The room which he occupied evinced signs of wealth 
and good taste. It was almost lined with books ; from 
the ceiling to the floor were rows and rows of shelves 
filled with valuable and well-bound volumes, collected 
by their owner during the entire period of his life, 
which had now extended over some five and fifty years. 
The Professor lived in his books ; he cared for nothing 
else. He may almost be said to have eaten and drank 
books, for he seldom appeared at the domestic meals 
without one in his hands, which he would prop up 


6 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


against a tumbler or a cruet stand in front of him, and 
devour, in turn, with his dinner. 

The carpet of the library was of rich, velvet pile ; 
the writing table, capacious and fitted with every 
necessary and convenience ; the chairs and sofas were 
substantial and luxurious. Heavy curtains shaded the 
windows and door, and two large argand lamps lighted 
the room by night. But, further than this, there was 
no elegance about the Professor’s library ; no flowers, 
nor dainty little tables, nor signs of feminine occupa- 
tion were scattered about. It was essentially a man’s 
room — but the room of a man who knew how to look 
after himself. Professor Aldwyn lay back in his chair, 
with his pale-blue eyes, assisted by spectacles, gazing 
intently at his book. The article that riveted his 
attention was entitled, “Is Self-delusion Insanity?” 
And, as he devoured it, he kept on making low murmurs 
of appreciation and acquiescence. 

“Very good! True, quite true. I must talk the 
matter over with Bunster ; and I should like to hear 
what Robson has to say on the subject. I will send 
them a wire to come in this evening, and we’ll argue 
it out together.” 

And the Professor stretched out his feet still nearer 
to the generous, grateful fire, and reveled in its 
warmth. At this moment, there sounded a tap on the 
library door, a timid, hesitating tap, as if the tapper 
were not at all certain of the reception that would 
follow it. 

“ Come in ! ” growled the Professor. 

The door opened, and on the threshold stood one 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


7 


of the prettiest young women to be seen in a day’s 
march. She was tall and slender, with a fair com- 
plexion tinted like a wild rose, and soft, brown eyes, 
full of soul, and the capability of loving. This was 
Mrs. Aldwyn, the Professor’s second wife, to whom he 
had been married for only two years. 

“What is it?” he asked, petulantly. “Don’t stand 
there with the door open! You are letting the most 
horrible draught into the room. Do, for goodness’ 
sake, either come in, or go away again 1 ” 

The girl — she was not much more, only four and 
twenty — entered the room at once, and shut the door 
behind her, and then advanced a little towards his chair. 

“ I am sorry to disturb you, Henry,” she began, “and 
I will not detain you a moment ; only I have just re- 
ceived this wire ” — holding out a yellow envelope to 
him — “from my cousin Ned. He has returned from 
sea, you know, and he wants to come and see me this 
evening. What shall I say in answer ? May I ask him 
to dinner ? ” 

The Professor veered round in his chair and looked 
at her. He was a long, thin man, of rather a spare and 
ascetic appearance, notwithstanding his love of creature 
comforts ; and his pale-blue eyes peered at Mrs. 
Aldwyn through his glasses, as if he had detected or 
wished to detect her in a crime. 

“Why?” he demanded, curtly. 

His wife commenced to stammer. “ O ! for no particu- 
lar reason ; only he is my first cousin, you know. We 
have not met for more than a year, and he wants to 
come. That’s all!” 


8 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“Then he had better wait till he’s asked. We can’t 
have him to-night. It is not convenient ! Mr. Bunster 
and Mr. Robson are coming to dine with us.” 

“ Have you asked them ? You never told me.” 

“ No ; but I am going to ask them now. Stay a 
minute, and you can take the notes and send them by 
James.” 

He turned to his writing-table, as he spoke, and 
commenced to write the notes of invitation. Having 
finished them, he handed them to his wife, and, with- 
out further comment, redirected his attention to his 
magazine article. Mrs. Aldwyn stood at the door a 
moment, twisting about the letters in her hand. 

“ But, Henry,” she ventured to say, at last, “ if we 
are to entertain these two gentlemen, it will not make 
much difference if I ask Ned Standish as well.” 

“ Not make much difference ! What are you talking 
about ? Do you suppose, when I invite my scientific 
friends here to discuss some important question, that I 
want a jibbering donkey like Ned Standish to interrupt 
us with his nonsense ? I won’t have him. You must 
send a wire and say you are engaged, and that he must 
call some other time. Though what you want to see 
him at all for, I can’t imagine.” 

“ I don’t often see any of my relations,” replied his 
wife, with a quivering lip, “nor do I often trouble you 
with a request on the subject. Ned will not be in 
town over a few days, and he says he may not have 
another opportunity of calling.” 

“Well, he can’t come to-night, and that’s enough of 
it. It would destroy all my talk with my own friends. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


9 


And I cannot understand, either, why you should 
always be hankering after your family in this childish 
manner. You have Madeline and Gilbert for com- 
panions. Why cannot you find your pleasure in them ?” 

Ethel Aldwyn made no further remonstrance, but 
left the room, closing the door rather sharply behind 
her. As she reached the hall, a handsome girl of 
about eighteen opened the dining-room door and con- 
fronted her. 

What did he say, Mumsey ? ” she asked. “ Beastly, 
as usual ? ” 

Mrs. Aldwyn gave a sad smile. 

“ I suppose you would say so, Maddy.” 

“ He won’t let me ask Ned to dinner, because he is 
going to have Mr. Bunster and Mr. Robson to spend 
the evening with himself.” 

“And what harm could nice, dear cousin Ned have 
done to those two horrid, old fogies? He would 
have been the only bright spot in the entertainment. 
But isn’t it just like papa ? He always opposes us in 
every possible way. Upon my word, I am beginning 
almost to hate him.” 

“ Hush, hush, Maddy ; you mustn’t say that. It is 
wicked.” 

“ Yes, Mumsey ; I know that’s always your cry ; but 
how can you expect me to love or respect a man 
who lives only to cross us ? What enjoyment do you 
ever have of your life, poor, dear thing ? You know 
you’re just as miserable as you can be.” 

“ O, no ; I’m not,” replied Mrs. Aldwyn, winking 
away the suspicion of a tear. “ Papa has every right 


10 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


to have things as he chooses. He is the master of the 
house ; you must not forget that.” 

“ And a nice master, too ! ” exclaimed Madeline, 
“living only to make everybody wretched. As for 
Gilbert, Mumsey, I believe he will murder his father 
some day, if he doesn’t take care. He’s perfectly 
bloodthirsty. You should have heard him talk last 
night. He says, if it goes on much longer, he shall 
run away from home.” 

“O! that’s very naughty of Gilbert,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Aldwyn, in a concerned voice ; “ I must talk to him 
about it. There will be a terrible quarrel some day if 
your father hears of any of his speeches. But take 
these notes and this telegram to James, Maddy dear, 
and tell him to deliver them at once. There’s sixpence 
for the wire.” 

“ And, I suppose, it’s to tell that dear, handsome 
cousin Ned that he’s not to come to-night,” said Made- 
line, in a disappointed tone. 

“ Of course, my dear child,” replied her step-mother, 
gravely ; “ what else should I say after your father’s 
decision ? ” 

Maddy made a grimace and ran off, and Mrs. Aldwyn 
passed into the dining-room, where Gilbert, a lad 
of sixteen, sat, in a discontented mood, before the 
fire. She felt very miserable as she did so. She 
dared not openly display her sympathy with the son 
and daughter of the house, but she felt their position 
and her own keenly. They were far bolder than her- 
self, and criticised their father’s selfishness and utter 
disregard of their feelings openly ; but she dared not 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


II 


imitate them, though she knew they were right in their 
judgment of the Professor’s character. For the sake 
of domestic peace, and in order to show Madeline and 
Gilbert a good example, she tried hard to hide what 
she thought of her husband’s conduct in her own 
breast; but she often felt that life was too hard for her. 
To be placed, at her age, as the sole influence for 
good, over two grown-up and discontented children, 
when she so sorely needed a mother’s guidance and 
counsel herself, was a very trying position for a young 
woman of four and twenty. But Gilbert and Madeline 
were very fond of her, and that was her great 
reward. 

“ O, Gilbert ! ” she exclaimed, as she saw the lad 
seize the coal scoop and throw a good load of fuel on 
the fire, “be careful ; there’s a dear boy. If papa saw 
you heaping up the coals in that fashion he would read 
us a lecture on economy. And coals have been fear- 
fully dear this year, you know.” 

“ He doesn’t spare them on his own fire,” replied the 
boy, as he threw on another shovelful, “ so why are we 
to perish of cold? Jarpes told me he took in three 
scuttles of coals to the library yesterday. Professor 
Aldwyn likes to keep his toes warm ; so does Professor 
Aldwyn’s son. Bad luck to it ! I wish I was the son 
of anybody else ! ” 

‘‘ Don’t say that, dear,” replied Ethel, soothingly. 
“ If you were not his son you would not be your 
mother’s, and, I am sure, you would never wish that.” 

“ It’s a good thing she’s dead,” said the lad, dog- 
gedly, “and my only wonder is how he ever persuaded 


12 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


you, poor little Mumsey, to take her place. If she 
had been alive, she would have warned you not.” 

“ Gilbert, it does make me so unhappy to hear you 
talk like that,” replied Mrs. Aldwyn ; and, at that 
moment, the Professor entered the room. 

“ Why are you not at college ? ” he demanded of his 
son ; but Gilbert made no answer. 

“ Gilbert, dear, your father speaks to you,” interposed 
Ethel, with a look of alarm. She had come to be so 
frightened, poor girl, of the constant squabbling that 
took place between her husband and his children. 

“ I heard him,” said the lad, insolently. 

“Then why don’t you answer me, sir ?” exclaimed 
the Professor, angrily. “ Why are you not at school ? ” 

“ Because you told me, last night, that I was such an 
ass, and an idiot, and a fool, that you were sick of paying 
the college fees for me, and that I had better take a 
broom and sweep a crossing, for I was fit for nothing 
else,” responded his son. 

“ Then why haven’t you taken the hint, and done as 
I advised you ? ” said the father. 

“Henry! Henry! ’’said his wife, in a tone of ex- 
postulation. 

“ Don’t you attempt to interfere, Ethel, between my 
children and myself, for you will do neither them nor 
yourself any good by it,” exclaimed the Professor. 
“This lad is incorrigibly lazy and insolent, and he must 
be kept in check. Look at him now, as he sits there, 
with his rough hair and his dirty hands ! Do you sup- 
pose I am going to sit down to luncheon with a savage 
like that ? Go to your room, sir, and make yourself 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


13 


decent. And what do you mean by heaping coals on 
the fire ? Isn’t it enough that I have all the expense 
of your sister and yourself on my hands, that you must 
add to it by wasting my substance in that fashion ? 
Take them off at once ! ” 

‘‘Take them off yourself!” cried the boy, as he 
darted from his seat and left the room. 

“ Is this some of your doing ? ” inquired the Professor 
of his wife. 

“ I think you might do me more justice than that, 
Henry,” she replied. “ Maddy and Gilbert would both 
tell you that I never encouraged either of them in re- 
bellion against you.” 

She sat down at the table as she spoke. Her heart 
was bursting with a sense of unkindness and injustice, 
and her sympathy was all with the poor boy, who had 
known no better way of expressing his disapproval of 
the domestic tyranny that went on in the house, morn- 
ing, noon and night, and made the children of this 
man hate and despise him. 

Madeline now ran into the room, fresh from having 
encountered her brother on the stair. She was much 
the more determined spirit of the two, as she possessed 
the more vigorous frame and constitution. She threw 
one glance of defiance at her father, and then walked 
straight up to her step-mother and kissed her. 

“What’s the matter, Mumsey?” she asked. “No 
fresh worry, is there } ” 

“ I consider that a most impertinent way of speak- 
ing,” said the Professor, frowning. “What do you 
mean. Miss, by no ‘ fresh worry ’ } ” 


14 THE DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE. 

“Just what I said, papa. Mumsey looks sad; so I 
asked if it were due to a stale worry, or a fresh one. 
It’s plain enough English, isn’t it?” 

“ I cannot understand why you should ask your 
mamma such a question at all,” was the irritable reply. 
“What worries have you to complain of, Ethel, fresh 
or stale ? ” 

“ Don’t you think we have had sufficient argument ? ” 
said Mrs. Aldwyn, as she looked up and tried to smile. 
“ Let us take our luncheon now. It is past the 
usual time. What will you have, Henry? Cutlets or 
mince ? ” 

“ Mince ! cutlets ! ” repeated the Professor, with a 
sneer; “both warmed up from yesterday. How many 
times have I told you that I don’t care how plain my 
meals are ; no man ever cared less for eating than I do ; 
but I cannot stand rechauffes. They are perfectly 
tasteless to me. I would rather have dry bread.” 

“ Here it is, papa,” said Maddy, passing him the 
loaf. 

“ They are not so nice, as fresh-cooked plats, perhaps,” 
said Mrs. Aldwyn ; “though, I think, cook is very care- 
ful about warming them again ; but they are far less 
expensive, you know, Henry, and you often complain 
of my housekeeping bills, as it is.” 

“ Well, let the children eat them, then, and give me 
something fresh, a sweetbread or a curry ; it matters 
little, so that I can eat it ; but I cannot digest those 
over-cooked dishes. They disagree with me.” 

“ So they do with me,” exclaimed Maddy, pushing 
her plate away. “ If you can’t eat them, no more can 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


5 


I. I must have inherited your fastidious liver ; so you 
had better fork out some more housekeeping money 
for Mumsey, forthwith.” 

“ Is this intended for impertinence ? ” demanded the 
Professor, grandly. 

“ O ! dear me, no ! ” exclaimed his daughter. “ It’s 
only an example of heredity.” 

“What have you for dinner this evening.^” he said, 
professing not to hear Maddy’s answer, and turning to 
his wife. 

“Turbot, roast lamb, and macaroni,” she answered. 

“You are not going to ask my friends, Bunster and 
Robson, to sit down to a dinner like that, I hope. 
They are coming to have an important discussion with 
me on a scientific subject. We must feed them well.” 

“ What additions do you wish me to make ? ” 

“ Soup, for one, then game to follow the lamb, sweets, 
and dessert. And have a bottle or two of champagne 
from the cellar — right-hand bin, number i8. And I 
don’t want the children to dine at table to-night. Let 
them make their dinner now.” 

“ But why didn’t you say so before, Henry,” she 
expostulated. “ Gilbert has had no dinner at all, and 
Maddy next to nothing.” 

“ Let her sit down and make it now, then,” said the 
Professor ; “ and, as for that young brute upstairs, let 
him go without till he learns to treat me with proper 
respect. I’ll ship him off to sea in the next collier 
I hear of, if he doesn’t take care.” 

“ And why am I not to dine down-stairs to-night ? ” 
asked Madeline. 


1 6 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

“ Because I don’t choose that you shall,” was the 
only reply she got, as her father left the room. 

As the door closed, Maddy made a mock respectful 
curtsy to him, with her fingers to her nose. 

“ O ! you dear ! ” she exclaimed ; “ you nice, loving, 
careful father! You ought to have a statue erected to 
you, you ought. Why, you haven’t as much feeling 
for your children as a cat has for her kittens. Ugh ! 
if I thought I could ever behave like that to mine, I 
would go and hang myself before I had any.” 

She snapped her fingers twice or thrice at the closed 
door, and then, turning to see how her step-mother 
was taking her rebellious conduct, she perceived that 
she had laid her head down on her outstretched arms, 
and was quietly crying to herself. 

“ O 1 Mumsey, Mumsey ! ” cried Maddy, flying to her 
side, “ what a beast I am to have made you cry ! But 
I cannot love him, dear ; it is no use. I cannot ! I 
cannot 1” 

“ It seems all so hopeless,” sighed Mrs. Aldwyn, 
“ and I feel so for poor Gilbert. What is to be done 
for the boy ? Where will it all end ? ” 

“ Let’s run away, the whole lot of us together,” sug- 
gested Maddy ; “ I’ll come, for one, and we should be 
happier working for our bread than obliged to bear his 
tempers, day after day. Do think of it, Mumsey.” 

“ No, dearest, we mustn’t even think of it. It’s 
wicked. We haven’t placed ourselves in this position — 
at least you and Gilbert haven’t — and so you must do 
your duty till God pleases to show you a way out of it. 
It won’t be for long, Maddy, you know. You are sure 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


17 


to marry some day, and Gilbert will go out into the 
world ; and, then, you will both be free to make your 
own lives.” 

“ And leave you here, poor darling, to bear it all by 
yourself,” exclaimed the warm-hearted girl. “ That 
would be a shame. Why, it would be enough to kill 
anybody.” 

For an answer, Ethel put her face down on the table, 
and began to sob. 

“ It was my own fault, my own fault,” she murmured, 

and I must bear it as best I can. O, Maddy, be care- 
ful how you marry. Keep a good man’s love when 
you get it. Keep it as the greatest treasure of your 
life.” 

They were crying, quietly, in each others’ arms, 
when a fearful tumult in the hall made them start to 
their feet. 

“ How dare you ? ” they heard Gilbert’s voice ex- 
claim ; “ What have I done that you should strike me ? 
I have borne it from no man yet, and I will not bear 
it from you.” 

Ethel and Maddy ran to the door, and opened it at 
once. There stood Gilbert, his eyes flashing with rage, 
and his coat thrown off, as if he intended to close in 
with the Professor, and give him a thrashing. 

“Gilbert, Gilbert, what are you doing?” cried 
Ethel, as she flew towards him. “ Think where you 
are, and who you are speaking to.” 

“ Leave me alone,” replied the lad, shaking off her 
detaining arm ; “ I will brook no interference in this 
matter. My father has treated me like a brute, and he 


1 8 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

must give me an account of it. He found me in the 
kitchen having some luncheon, and he accused me of 
stealing and wasting his property ; and, when I an- 
swered him, he struck me with that cane, and I won’t 
bear it ; I won’t.” 

“ O, Henry, it is not possible,” exclaimed his wife, in 
distress. 

It is quite possible. If luncheon is laid for him in 
the dining-room, which he refuses to eat, and then he 
steals from the larder what may be intended for an- 
other meal, he is wasting my property, and I shall 
chastise him for it as I think fit,” replied the Professor, 
still brandishing the cane in his hand. 

“No, you won’t,” cried the lad defiantly; “you’ve 
thrashed me for the last time. If you attempt to touch 
me again. I’ll give you a jolly good licking, father or 
no father.” 

“Are you sure I am your father?” demanded the 
Professor, in a sneering tone. “/ should not like to 
swear to it myself. You may be the son of my next 
door neighbor, for aught I know. You have never 
shown signs of having any blood of mine in your 
veins.” 

This insult to his dead mother seemed to make all 
the blood in the boy’s body boil, and swell his figure 
to twice its size. He advanced close to his father’s 
side, and hissed in his ear — 

“You coward. You double-dyed coward and liar, 
to try and villify my mother’s name. Take that,” and 
he struck the Professor straight across the mouth. 

Ethel and Maddy screamed. They thought there 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


9 


wculd be bloodshed between the father and son ; but 
the Professor, instead of wielding the stick again, 
turned very pale and trembled. 

“You pitiful coward!” repeated Gilbert, “I would 
beg my bread from door to door before I would eat 
another crust at the expense of the defamer of my dead 
mother. Do you remember the text, * And in hell he 
lifted up his eyes ’ ? It will come back to you, depend 
on that ; and you will remember, then, that your son 
cursed you for the love of his mother. I am going now. 
You will not see me more, and I hope I may never see 
you again, either in this world or the next.” 

He was about to rush from the house, but his sister 
prevented him. “Gillie,” she cried, “you will not go 
without bidding me goodby ? ” 

“No, Maddy, and Mumsey, too,” he said, returning 
to embrace them ; “ I shall never forget your love to 
me; never — never!” 

“ But you will come back, my dear boy. You cannot 
go like this,” said Ethel. 

“Never, whilst that man lives,” replied the lad, 
determinedly. 

“ But you have no money, no clothes.” 

“ I will write to you ; you can send them to me,” he 
said. 

“That she certainly will not do,” said the Professor, 
as he drew his wife away. “ If you leave this house, 
sir, you leave it forever, and will never have any assist- 
ance from me as long as you live.” 

“All right ; I don’t want it,” cried Gilbert, as he ran 
out of the house, and slammed the hall door after him. 


20 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ It is impossible. You cannot let him go like this,” 
said Ethel, indignantly. 

“ He has made it possible for himself,” replied the 
Professor. “He has chosen to rebel against my author- 
ity, and, with my consent, he never enters these doors 
again.” 

He turned away to the library as he spoke, leaving 
the two women to gaze at each other aghast, and 
wonder what was to happen next. 


21 


CHAPTER 11. 

A PLEASANT EVENING. 

After this scene, the dinner party was hardly likely 
to be a success, at all events, for Ethel Aldwyn. She 
looked very pretty in the plain, black dress she chose 
to wear, which was just cut down at the neck to show 
her fair white throat, nestled in billows of soft lace. 
She arranged her hair very carefully, and tried hard to 
erase the traces of emotion from her countenance ; 
but her eyelids were red and swollen from weeping, 
and her lips quivered as she spoke. Maddy had gone 
up to bed, utterly refusing to take anything to eat or 
drink. She was much attached to her brother Gilbert, 
and declared, vehemently, that if he did not return 
home, she should follow him. Her step-mother had 
been arguing the matter with her, and begging her to 
do nothing rash or hasty. She had a secret dread in 
her heart regarding Madeline, which she had never 
mentioned, even to the girl herself. 

The year before, she had been thrown into contact 
with the family of one of her school companions, and, 
though they had not been quite of her own social 
standing, Ethel had not liked to discourage the in- 
timacy, because the Reynolds had been very kind to 
Maddy, and the girl had few young friends, on account 
of her father never allowing her to invite any girls to 


22 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


visit her at her own home. Her step-mother had felt 
glad at first, therefore, to see the interest she took in 
going to the Reynolds’ house, until she found out, by 
accident, that the eldest son was carrying on a sort of 
flirtation with Madeline. Wilfred Reynolds was a 
handsome, smart, young fellow, but very common- 
place ; and Ethel knew well that the Professor — who, 
notwithstanding his unamiable disposition, was un- 
deniably a gentleman by birth — would never consent 
to an engagement, or marriage, between his daughter 
and the Reynolds’ son. She had, therefore, tried to 
lessen the intimacy by every means in her power ; but 
she had not been entirely successful ; and, when Maddy 
talked about leaving home, or having her revenge, 
she was always afraid she entertained some idea of 
eloping with young Mr. Reynolds. She did not like 
the dogged manner with which Maddy had received 
the episode of the afternoon. The girl was very high- 
spirited, and capable of taking strong measures in order 
to get her own way. Ethel dreaded the effect of 
Gilbert’s quarrel with his father upon her nature, 
which was not unlike the Professor’s in its obstinacy 
and high temper. She felt very uneasy about both 
her step-children, and descended to the drawing-room, 
to receive her guests, in anything but a happy mood. 

Mr. Punster and Mr. Robson were too partial to a 
good dinner to have refused the invitation ; and they were 
both standing on the hearth-rug, arrayed in white waist- 
coats and swallow-tailed coats, when she entered the 
room. The Professor was with them, talking as ami- 
cably on the topics of the day, as if he had had no dis^ 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


23 


turbance in the house, and his only son was comfort- 
ably domesticated beneath the paternal roof. His 
pale-blue eyes did not show the least trace of emotion, 
nor his manner annoyance. He was absorbed in the 
discussion of some new book, and did not even lift his 
eyes when his young wife came up to his side. He did 
just raise them, as Mr. Bunster officiously questioned 
her as to whether she had not caught a cold in the 
rough weather they had been having — her eyes looked 
just a little inflamed to him — but, after one glance of 
caution, he dropped them again, and returned to his 
argument. 

The dinner had been announced, and the party was 
about to adjourn to the dining-room, when a slight com- 
motion was heard in the hall. Ethel started. Could it 
be Gilbert come back again, finding out already, per- 
haps, how hopeless opposition to home authority is, 
when one has no other resources? — when her ear 
caught the sound of a familiar voice, and her face 
flushed crimson. 

‘‘ Who can that be demanding admittance at this 
hour? ” asked Professor Aldwyn. “ James ! say we are 
engaged, and can see no one.” 

“ O ! no, you don’t,” cried a merry voice, through 
the open door ; lor I’ve come expressly to dine with 
my cousin Ethel ! ” and, at the same moment. Captain 
Edward Standish, of the steamship ‘‘ Davenport,” 
entered the room, and grasped Mrs. Aldwyn by the 
hand. 

“ Why, my dear Ethel, am I late ? ” he exclaimed. 
“ I thought your dinner-hour was half-past seven. You 


24 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


expected me, of course. Why, how strange you look. 
Surely, you are not ill ? And aren’t you glad to see 
me?” 

“Yes, Ned, very glad,” stammered Ethel; “only — 
only — I thought — ” 

“ What did you think, my dear ? ” 

“ I will answer that question, sir,” interposed the 
Professor. “Your cousin thought, after the wire she 
sent you this morning, that you would delay giving us 
the pleasure of your company until you heard from 
us again.” 

“ Did you send me a wire, Ethel ? ” exclaimed Cap- 
tain Standish, with surprise. “ Well, I’ve not been 
back to my hotel since the morning — had my things 
sent on to the club — so I never got the message. But, 
bless you ! ” he went on in his jolly fashion, “ I should 
have come all the same, wire or not ; for I have to go 
back to Plymouth the day after to-morrow, and I 
meant to see you before I sailed again. How are you. 
Professor ? Jolly, eh ? You don’t get fatter, do you ? 
You should take a voyage with me. That would make 
another man of you. What ! is dinner ready ? Come 
along, Ethel. I shall take you in myself. O, yes, I 
daresay I’m the most unworthy individual present, but 
I take precedence as a blood relation ; so, no excuse. 
Wait till dinner is over,” he continued, as they moved 
towards the dining-room, “ and you shall see what you 
shall see. I’ve got the loveliest things for you and 
Maddy, from Japan. By the way, where is Maddy ? 
Not absent from home, I hope ? ” 

“ Oh, no,” replied Mrs. Aldwyn, hesitatingly ; “ but 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 2$ 

you will not see her to-night, Ned. She has a head- 
ache, and has gone to bed.” 

“ Poor girl ! Well, I’m lucky to have found you. And 
fancy your sending a wire to put me off. You nasty 
little thing.” 

“I — we — that is, the Professor thought,” she an- 
swered, unwillingly, “ that, as he had some scientific 
friends coming to-night, you would rather visit us 
some other time, Ned. But it doesn’t signify, of course. 
You know how welcome you are.” 

“ Of course I do ! Weren’t we brought up to- 
gether from babies ; and do you suppose, for a moment, 
I would let anything come between us. Here, let me 
carve that lamb for you ; I’m a regular dab at carving. 
I have to do it at the saloon-table, you know.” 

“Bring that lamb to me,” said the Professor, in a 
severe tone, to the man servant. “ If Mrs. Aldwyn is 
unequal to so simple a task, / am the proper person to 
undertake it.” 

“ O ! of course you are. Wish you joy of it. Only 
I wanted to make myself useful,” said Captain Standish 
with open eyes. 

After this little episode, the Professor seemed to 
try to make himself purposely offensive to his latest 
guest. He preserved a dead silence when the Captain 
told any of his sea stories, or perpetrated some in- 
nocent little joke ; and it was evident to the whole 
party that his presence was unwelcome to the host. 
At last, when the dessert was over. Professor Aldwyn 
rose, and, telling his wife to have coffee served in the 
library for himself and his friends, said : 


26 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


Come, Bunster and Robson, let us go where we 
may have some peace. It is impossible to discuss any 
sensible matter with a hubbub like this going on.” 

And, without a word of apology to his wife, or 
Captain Standish, he stalked from the room, followed 
by his own friends. 

Ned Standish looked at Ethel, with a comical glance 
of dismay. 

“ What’s up ? What is the matter ? Have I done 
or said anything wrong ? ” 

“ O ! no, no ! ” replied his cousin, who was ready to 
cry. “ It has nothing to do with you, Ned. The Pro 
lessor is rather queer, sometimes, you know, and only 
fit company for himself and his cronies. And he has 
had a good deal to upset him to-day. His son and he 
have had a serious quarrel, which has made us all mis- 
erable. Gilbert has left the house, declaring he 
will never return to it ; and we don’t know where he 
has gone, nor what he will do, so we are all uneasy. 
Pray, think no more of the Professor’s manner. He 
was never a courtier, you know.” 

Ned Standish looked her narrowly in the face. He 
seemed as though he would have said something 
sympathetic, but was afraid to trust himself. So he 
jumped up from the table, instead, and exclaimed, in a 
brisk voice : 

Well, never mind him. He is happy now, with his 
cronies. Let us be happy, too. Come into the draw- 
ing-room, and let me prove to you that I have not for- 
gotten my old playfellow during my wanderings.” 

He went into the hall, and pulled a large parcel after 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


27 


him into the drawing-room, where he immediately 
commenced to unpack it. Ethel called out with de- 
light, as its contents were displayed to view. 

O how I wish Maddy was here,” she exclaimed, 
with girlish pleasure, as Captain Standish produced roll 
after roll of soft, white Japanese gauze, and pale tinted 
silks, quaintly carved silver trays and boxes, painted fans, 
and all sorts of curious toys, in the shape of huge 
beetles and frogs and butterflies, finishing up with a 
beautifully inlaid cabinet, of great value, for her 
especial acceptance. 

“ O Ned, Ned ! did you really get all these for us? 
How very good of you. I thought you had forgotten 
me long ago.” 

‘‘Forgotten you, Ethel?” he answered, with a 
strange softness in his voice, “ Never I I shall never 
forget you, nor the happy days we spent in Beere, as 
long as I live.” 

“ O don’t speak of Beere,” she cried. “ Ned, I have 
never been home once since my marriage. The Pro- 
fessor says it is childish of me to want to do so. But 
I dream of it, oh, so often, and long to see the dear, 
old place, with its honeysuckles and roses blooming all 
the winter, down in sweet Devonshire.” 

“ But, why won’t he let you go ? You should assert 
your dignity, Ethel, and insist upon it. Your father 
and mother must be longing to see you again.” 

“ O, yes ; they are. And they came up to London 
last year to visit me ; but you see how it is, Ned, he 
doesn’t like visitors. They disturb him at his studies, 
and I don’t think father and mother felt very comfort- 


28 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


able. The Professor is so much cleverer than any 
of us. I am afraid we are not suitable company for 
him.” 

“ And yet you married him, Ethel,” said Captain 
Standish, curiously. 

“ Ah ! Ned, don’t speak of it. It is best not men- 
tioned. Let me look at these beautiful things, instead, 
and be happy in thinking how kindly my cousin has 
thought of me in absence.” 

“ And that he will always be your friend. Remem- 
ber that, also, Ethel. But I am afraid, my poor girl, 
that you are not, you cannot be, happy.” 

“ Hush, Ned ! No one is quite happy in this world, 
you know, and, I daresay, my lot is as good as that of 
most. I shall keep all my treasures in this lovely little 
cabinet. How exquisitely these birds are inlaid, and 
the pink flowers. What are they ? ” 

‘‘ They are the blossoms of the almond tree, which 
grows in profusion in Japan. The whole country is 
rosy with them in their season. But, Ethel,” looking 
at his watch, “ it is past ten o’clock. I think I had 
better be making a start. I have so many things to do 
before joining my ship, that I don’t want to be late 
out of bed. I shall not disturb the Professor again. 
He will not break his heart because he has missed the 
opportunity of wishing me goodby. So, farewell, my 
dear little cousin. Keep up your heart ; and, if you 
ever find yourself in any difficulty out of which I can 
help you, my agents, Harwood & Crowe, will always 
forward a letter to me wherever I may be. Goodby, 
God bless you ! ” and he wrung Ethel’s hand heartily. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


29 


As soon as he was gone, the poor girl sat down 
beside the presents he had brought her, and cried as if 
her heart would break. He had reminded her so 
powerfully of her home and all the dear ones she had 
left there. Three or four years before, she and cousin 
Ned had been engaged to be married. But a silly 
quarrel about some other girl had taken place between 
them, and he had gone back to sea before they had 
made it up again. So they had drifted apart, and 
Ethel had considered herself free. Professor Aldwyn 
had come down to Beere, which is on the seacoast, 
with his children, for change of air ; and she had mar- 
ried him chiefly for the reason that most women marry : 
because he had proposed to her, and no other eligible 
man was present to take the shine out of him. Her 
parents had thought it would be an excellent match 
for her. The Professor had been on his best behavior. 
Ethel had made great friends with* his children, and 
fancied she could be quite happy passing her life with 
them. And so the mistake had come to pass, as so 
many other mistakes have done before it. She sat for 
two or three hours alone, examining and admiring the 
gifts which her cousin had brought her, inhaling the 
strange, sweet perfume which pervaded them, and 
handling the soft silks and gauzes, as she fabricated 
dresses and tea-gowns out of them for herself and 
Maddy, in her mind’s eye. 

At last, she heard the library door open and shut, 
and footsteps sounded in the hall. Messrs. Bunster 
and Robson had finished their discussion, and were 
about to return home. After the last few words had 


30 


THE DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE. 


been spoken, the hall door shut, and the Professor 
entered the drawing-room, and took up his station on 
the hearth-rug. His wife noted, with secret alarm, 
that he was still displeased with her, and prepared for 
a lecture. 

‘‘Where did you get all that rubbish?” he com- 
menced, as he surveyed the dress pieces and toys with 
which the tables were covered. 

“ My cousin brought them for me,” she answered, 
quietly. 

“ I won’t have them in the room. Throw them all 
out,” said the Professor. 

“ What harm do they do ? ” she expostulated. “ I 
shall take them up-stairs presently.” 

“ Throw them out into the passage, at once, I say. 
If you don’t do it, I will chuck them out myself.” And, 
suiting the action to the word, he dealt a violent kick 
at the inlaid cabinet, which broke in its paneled side. 

“ O, Henry ! my cabinet ! You have ruined it,” cried 
Ethel. “ How cruel you are to me. Why should you 
have done that ? And it must have cost ever so much 
money. Ned brought it all the way from Japan, ex- 
pressly for me.” 

“Ned! Ned! Ned!” repeated the Professor, in a 
tone which was intended to imitate her own. “ And, 
pray, why did you not obey my orders with regard to 
‘ Ned ’ ? I told you to send a wire to tell him not to 
come here this evening.” 

“And so I did. I sent it at once.” 

“ I don’t believe it. You are lying to me. You heard 
the fellow say, himself, that he had never received it.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 3 1 

I have never lied to you, Henry. It is most unjust 
of you to say so. I wanted to see my cousin very 
much, but I sent the telegram just the same ; and it 
was quite as great a surprise to me as to you, when he 
came in.” 

‘‘ I don’t believe you, madam. I saw how particular 
you were in dressing yourself this evening. A new 
dress, with roses in your bosom ! Roses, indeed, in 
March ! ” 

“ It was not a new dress,” said his wife, indignantly. 

It is quite an old one, which I had freshened up with 
some clean lace. And, as for the roses, Mrs. Vernon 
gave them to me out of her conservatory, yesterday.” 

That is easily enough said,” sneered the Professor. 
“ The fact remains that you deceived me with regard 
to the telegram, and that you were determined to re- 
ceive that man, whether I would or not. But it is the 
last time. You receive no more of your lovers in my 
house.” 

“My lovers!” exclaimed Ethel, flushing scarlet. 
“ How dare you say so.” 

“ Was not Captain Edward Standish your lover, be- 
fore you did me the honor to marry me ? ” 

“No; our engagement had been broken off years 
before. Indeed, it scarcely could be called an engage- 
ment, I was such a child. It was only a cousinly flirta- 
tion, and you know it well enough.” 

“ I know that you shall never see the man again, 
with my permission ; and, if he forces his way into the 
house, as he did to-night, I will tell my servants to kick 
him out.” 


32 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ It would be worthy of you,” she answered ; “ but 
you may be sure that neither he, nor any of my rela- 
tions, shall enter your house to be insulted. They are 
far too good for that.” 

“ O, that is your opinion, is it ? Well, then, I beg 
that Captain Standish’s love offerings may follow his 
example, and make their exit for the last time.” 

And, throwing up a window, the Professor com- 
menced to throw the bales of silk and muslin out of it 
into the London street. Ethel stood by and watched 
him without making a remonstrance. She ’knew it 
would be useless, and that her entreaties to be allowed 
to retain them would only result in more abuse being 
heaped- upon her head. But, as the last treasure met 
its fate, and she heard the Japanese cabinet fall with a 
crash upon the pavement below, she drew herself up to 
her full height, and said, slowly : 

‘‘ O, you are a hard, cruel man. Gilbert was right 
when he said, to-day, that God would bring it home to 
you. Have you ever thought of any one but yourself, 
lived for any one but yourself, in this life yet ? How 
happy your first wife was to go so soon. How I wish 
that I could follow her. But the day will come, Henry, 
when you will look round you for affection, and find 
none. Mark my words ! You have never tried to win 
the love of any one whilst you lived ; and, when you 
die, there will not be one honest tear shed over your 
grave.” 

It was the worst thing she had ever said to him yet ; 
but he did not feel it. Such men do not feel whilst 
they remain on this earth. Professor Aldwyn had suf- 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


33 


fered the selfish nature, which prompted him to live 
for himself and his own pleasures alone, to gain so 
much the mastery over him, that he did not recognize 
it as such. He only thought that the whole world 
(and, especially, his particular part of it) was set up in 
opposition to his wishes ; and was determined that his 
wife and children, at least, should comply with them. 
He turned, grandly, to where poor Ethel stood, with 
her moist eyes and flushed cheeks, and said : 

Leave the room, and do not enter my presence 
again until you have learned how to behave yourself.” 

“ I am willing enough to do that, Henry ; but I must 
tell you what I think, first. You have driven your 
only son from your house, and anything that may 
befall him will lie at your door. If Gilbert goes 
wrong, or meets with some terrible death, it will be ac- 
counted to you as surely as if you had killed him, or 
led him astray. He is your child ; you are account- 
able to God for him ; and if he errs, as err he must, 
poor boy, cast on the world at his tender age, you will 
have to work out the penalty of his wrong-doing. I 
entreat you to think of it, before it is too late, and he 
has gone too far to be recalled. It is not only Gilbert ; 
Maddy is as likely to run away from home as he. She 
loves her brother, dearly ; and your harshness to him 
has sunk deeply into her soul. I cannot be responsible 
for her, if you stand aloof and will not do your share of 
the duty.” 

“ Anything more ? ” demanded the Professor, sternly. 

Only to believe what I tell you,” replied Ethel. 
^‘That I am perfectly innocent of displeasing you in- 


34 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


tentionally ; that \ did send that telegram, and had no 
idea that my cousin would come here to-night.” 

“ And I repeat that it is a falsehood ; and I would 
not believe you if you swore it till you were black in 
the face. If my daughter is going wrong (as you seem 
to indicate), she will owe it to your example. A woman 
who can wish to hold any communication, after she is 
married, with a former lover, must have a degraded 
nature, and is not fit to have the charge of an innocent 
girl.” 

“ I do not wish to have the charge of her ; I will not 
keep it,” cried Ethel, passionately, “ if you continue to 
insult me like this. Let me go back to my own people. 
Better a crust with them than this life of suspicion 
and distrust.” 

“Your own people,” sneered the Professor. “Why 
not say your own cousin, at once ? That’s the fellow 
you’re hankering after. Do you suppose I can’t see it ? 
And you’d like to run after him, wouldn’t you, and 
tell him how you’ve been ill-treated here, and ask him 
to comfort you, eh } ” 

“ I shall answer you no more,” replied his wife, as 
she prepared to leave the room. “ Why was I ever 
such a fool as to imagine a man, who refused to go to 
his father when he lay dying, would have sufficient 
heart to make either a good parent to his own children, 
or a generous husband to the unfortunate women who 
were foolish enough to marry him ? ” 

And with that, Mrs. Aldwyn walked up to her own 
room, leaving the Professor looking rather foolish. She 
had hit him on a sore point. If there was one inch 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


35 


dent in his selfish life which he regretted, it was the 
fact that he had not been present at his old father’s 
death-bed. His father had been good and generous to 
him, and he was, perhaps, the person for whom he had 
felt the utmost affection of which his cold-blooded 
nature was capable. But he had been employed on 
some very interesting and difficult scientific experi- 
ments when summoned to his sick-bed, and he had de- 
layed going until it was too late ; till the good, old 
man had passed away, saying, to the very last moment, 
Henry might have come.” There was nothing Pro- 
fessor Aldwyn liked to be reminded of less than this ; 
and, as his wife left him, he walked back to his library 
and sat down in his large arm-chair. The fire was still 
smouldering on the hearth, and the room felt warm. 
He thought he would sit there for a little and compose 
himself. He did not care to join Ethel again so soon ; 
and the events of the day seemed to have upset him a 
little. He felt unusually languid and sleepy, and yet 
he did not feel inclined to rest. His heart had always 
suffered from slow circulation, and, at times, he had 
been warned against excitement or hurry. He knew 
what did him good on such occasions — a strong glass 
of whiskey or brandy. The liquor case stood on the 
table beside him, and he filled a bumper and drank it 
off. Suspicious and reserved by nature, he credited 
others with his own failings, and really believed that 
Ethel had deceived him with regard to Captain Stan- 
dish. That idea was not calculated to do his heart 
any good ; but the allusion to his father had had a far 
worse effect upon him. The lamps had been lowered. 


36 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


and he was sitting there by the light of the fire, alone ; 
and, as it flickered lower and lower, he was foolish 
enough to fancy that he saw the form of his old father 
standing at the opposite side of the table to him. He 
rubbed his eyes, and gazed at the figure steadfastly ; 
but it still stood there, looking at him earnestly, as it 
appeared, but very gravely. In order to dispel so 
absurd a fancy, the Professor closed his eyes, as though 
in sleep. He felt a. strange sort of faintness steal over 
him, not painful, but very unusual, as if he were sink- 
ing down through the chair cushions to the very floor. 
He believed that sleep was really stealing over him, 
and yielded himself up to its influence. His eyes re- 
mained closed ; his head sunk further and further back 
on the crimson-plush bolster, until he lost all conscious- 
ness — and slept, indeed. 


37 


CHAPTER III. 

THE PROFESSOR BEGINS TO LIVE. 

How long the Professor remained unconscious to 
external things, he could not have said ; but, when he 
awoke again, he found himself standing at the back of 
the chair in which he had fallen asleep, holding on to 
it with his two hands. He felt strangely giddy and 
weak, as if he had just emerged from a long illness ; 
and, for a while, he could not collect his thoughts, nor 
realize where he was. But, as his swaying figure some- 
what steadied itself, and his senses returned to him, he 
knew that he was grasping the back of his own arm- 
chair. 

This is really very strange,” he thought ; how ever 
did I get here ? Surely, I fell asleep in this chair. I 
must have walked in my sleep.” 

His hands wandered about the soft-cushioned velvet, 
as he spoke to himself, until they rested on the top of 
a man’s head — the head of a man, who, apparently, 
still occupied the seat he had vacated. The Professor 
started. Who could it be } Who had had the impu- 
dence to enter his private room and usurp his seat ? Did 
it mean robbery, or bloodshed, or violence of some 
sort? He was a nervous man, and he was conscious 
he had more enemies than friends in the world. 

The room was now sunk in profound darkness. The 


38 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


fire had completely died out, and the atmosphere was 
intensely cold. And yet, it did not strike the Professor 
as strange that he could see all the objects in it. The 
touch of the stranger’s head had made him shudder 
with apprehension ; but he felt compelled to see who 
he was. and defend himself against him, if necessary. 
He seized a wooden ruler off his writing-table, and 
crept cautiously round to the front of the arm-chair. 
How very strange and uncertain his limbs felt as he 
did so! For a moment, the question flashed through 
his mind if he had not exceeded a little, when drinking 
with his friends the night before. As a rule, he was a 
most abstemious man ; but he had been rather put out 
on this occasion, and may have taken more champagne 
than was good for him. And then, the glass of brandy 
he had swallowed afterwards ; surely, the liquor must 
have had an effect on him ; he could account in no 
other way for the very unusual sensations he ex- 
perienced. He had been moving slowly round the 
table, as he pondered after this fashion, grasping the 
ruler in his hand, determined to see who it was that 
had dared to invade his privacy. He had reached the 
front of the arm-chair by this time, and stood upon the 
hearth-rug. He was in full view of the man who slept 
in his favorite seat, and he gazed at him aghast — it was 
himself ! 

“ Good God 1 ” exclaimed the Professor, as the truth 
burst on him. But there was no doubt of it. There 
he lay, stretched out most comfortably, in the dress 
suit in which he had spent the evening, with the empty 
glass, in which he had drank the brandy, on the table 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 39 

beside him, with his hands folded on his chest, and his 
eyes fast shut. He looked very calm and peaceful, as 
if he had suffered no pain ; but he was unmistakably 
Professor Aldwyn, or, rather, what had been he. The 
Professor put out his finger timidly, and touched the 
dead body on the forehead. It was cold as ice. There 
was no question about it. The spirit had departed 
from it. 

But, good God ! ” again exclaimed the Professor ; 
‘‘ who then am I ? ” Then the great truth flashed 
across his mind. 

“ Is it possible ? Can it really be the case ? Have 
I passed out of my body ? Is my connection with 
earth broken forever ? ” 

He glanced up as he thought thus, and again saw 
standing, on the opposite side of the table, the figure 
of his old father, who solemnly bowed an affirma- 
tive answer to his questioning. 

^‘Father,” exclaimed the Professor, relieved to 
recognize some one who could explain the mystery to 
him, “ tell me, am I right, and is this Death ? ” 

His father bowed again. 

“ Come nearer,” cried the Professor ; “ take my hand. 
Let me feel, in this crisis of nature, that I have some 
one to support and strengthen me.” 

But his father’s spirit faded away, without a response. 
Suddenly, the whole story of his own defalcation, when 
the old man had yearned to see his son on his death- 
bed, and he never went near him, flashed on the Pro- 
fessor’s memory ; and a voice seemed to murmur in 
his ear, “ It shall be meted unto you again.” 


40 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


A sickening horror of the whole business took pos- 
session of him, as if the body, lying in the arm-chair, 
were not his own, but that of some one else. He tried 
to move further away from it ; to go to the other end 
of the library, where was placed a large, luxurious 
couch ; but he found he Avas unable to do so. Some 
invisible, but powerful attraction, chained him to the 
vicinity of the corpse, and he was forced to remain 
where he was, gazing at it. 

“ But how can this be ? ” he thought. “ What have 
I always heard and been taught, that people, as soon 
as they die, are taken away, either to heaven or hell ! 
If I am dead (which I certainly do not feel like), why 
am I still here ? Why have I not been carried away 
to another world 7 Why have I not wings, or — or — 
the other thing 1 don’t understand it. I must be 
dreaming. I am suffering from nightmare, and will 
wake presently and laugh at my imaginary distress. 
It is impossible it can be true, and I still remaining in 
the library at home. It would be too utterly absurd.” 

He stood there, gazing at the quiet sleeper in the 
arm-chair for some time longer, wishing that the dream 
would end and he could wake up again. 

“ I was a fool to go to sleep in a chair,” he mused. 
“ It always has some unpleasant effect. I should have 
gone straight up to bed at once.” But, at this juncture, 
his meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the 
housemaid, who bounced into the room noisily, and, 
going straight up to the windows, threw back the 
shutters, and let the March daylight into the apart- 
ment. The Professor, although fully clothed, as far as 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


41 


he was aware, felt a strange shyness before the maid 
servant, and said some words of explanation, with re- 
gard to her finding him there at such an unusual hour, 
which she did not seem to hear. But as she turned 
from the window to take up the hearth-rug, and per- 
ceived the silent figure in the arm-chair, she gave a fell 
shriek, and rushed out of the room again. 

This is very strange,” thought the Professor, ** can 
this really be a nightmare ? Why did Mary not see 
me ? I called her by name. Why did she not hear 
my voice ? I begin to think I must be ill. I am in a 
fever and delirious. But I never felt better in my life. 
It is all very strange and inexplicable.” 

But here appeared the faces of James, the footman, 
and Sarah, the cook, at the open door, whilst behind 
them came Mary ; all with expressions of the greatest 
alarm. 

‘‘ Don’t be afraid,” the Professor said to them ; “ I 
am only suffering from nightmare. It will be over in 
a minute. Come here and wake me, James, as you are 
used to do in the mornings.” 

But no one of them heeded him. 

‘‘ O, poor master,” exclaimed the cook ; “whatever 
will the missus say ? ” 

“La, cook, don’t let’s go a step nearer,” said Mary. 
“ He do look awful ; you can’t think. I shall never get 
over the fright all my life long.” 

“ Now, don’t talk nonsense,” interposed the more 
heroic James. “ I daresay it’s only a fit he’s in. Or 
maybe he’s had a drop too much. You females are 
always for making a scare. Why, he’s lying there as 


42 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


natural as possible, from what I can see. No more 
dead than I am, I’ll lay you tuppence.” 

“You jist go round and look at his face,” said the 
housemaid. “You won’t talk about scares then. If 
he ain’t dead, poor feller, well I’ve never seen a dead 
’un, that’s all. I nearly died myself when I seen ’im.” 

“ Lor’, gals, and so he is, sure enough,” said James, 
as he came round to the hearth-rug and looked the 
corpse in the face. “ Dead as a door nail. What a 
sudden thing. He must have gone off in a fit-like. 
Well, to be sure. Pore master. He was a bad ’un, if 
ever there was such ; but we mustn’t remember it 
against ’im, now he’s dead and gone.” 

Here Sarah approached, timidly, and touched the 
body. 

“ Lauks, he’s as cold as cold. He must have been 
gone for hours. My, James, do give me a drop of that 
brandy, for it makes me feel quite faint-like. What are 
we to do about it ? ” 

“What o’clock is it ?” said the footman, glancing at 
the timepiece, “ seven o’clock, and he’s bin here the 
best part of the night. Now, the fust thing is to fetch 
the doctor, or we may get into a scrape. So, you two 
gals go down to the kitchen, and keep as quiet as you 
can. Don’t you let the missus know, whatever you do ; 
the doctor will do that part of the business; and if 
you’ll clear out I’ll lock the door, and fetch Doctor 
Barnes as quick as I can.” 

“ Aye,” remarked the cook, significantly, as they 
hustled out of the room. “ He wouldn’t let the young 
missus call in Doctor Barnes, when she had such terrible 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


43 


pain last week ; but he little thought, the next time he 
was fetched, ’twould be to look at his corpus. He’s 
been real hard on her at times ; God forgive him.” 

“ That he have,” acquiesced Mary. I wonder how 
she’ll take it.” 

“/don’t,” replied James. 

“And that pore lad, too ; gone only yesterday, and 
wandering about, the Lord only knows where. It do 
seem like a judgment, now, don’t it ? ” 

And with that the Professor heard them carefully 
close the door, and lock it on the outside. 

It was not a nightmare, then ; he actually was dead. 
Well, it was the most curious thing that had ever oc- 
curred to him. Where was hell, and where was 
heaven ? Should he never be able to get away from 
that room ? What was the matter with him, that he 
could not fly ? This was totally opposite from every- 
thing that he had ever been told of the change called 
death. In an incredibly short time, as it seemed to 
him. Doctor Barnes entered the room, with James, on 
tiptoe, and came up to his side. He spoke to him ; he 
even pulled him by the sleeve, or appeared to do so ; 
but the doctor took no notice of the appeal. He went, 
straight up to the corpse, pulled open the eyelids 
placed his hand over the bosom, and then said, briefly : 

“ Failure of the action of the heart. Been dead for 
hours ; probably seven. How comes he to be in even- 
ing clothes ? ” 

“We had a dinner party last night, sir,” replied the 
servant. 

“ Ah ! excited himself, did he ? ” 


44 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


I don’t know, sir. The master sat up after we had 
gone to bed. I didn’t know but what he was in bed, 
as usual, till Mary come in this morning and gave the 
alarm. He must have come back to the libery after 
the gentlemen as dined here was gone.” 

“ Ah ! any trouble yesterday that you know of ? ” 

“ Master Gilbert and the master, they had a terrible 
quarrel, sir, about two o’clock, which no one couldn’t 
help hearing. A regular fight, as you may say, sir ; 
and the young gentleman, he ran out of the house, and 
haven’t been back since.” 

^‘That did the mischief, doubtless,” said Doctor 
Barnes. “ I’ve warned the Professor again and again 
against any violent excitement ; but he has not heeded 
me. Well, the body cannot remain thus. I must go 
and break the sad news to Mrs. Aldwyn. Tell one of 
the maids to say that the Professor is not very well, 
and that I wish to speak to her. Meanwhile, I will 
lock this door again, and write a certificate of death.” 

As the two men left the room, the Professor could 
not help thinking to himself what an ungrateful crew 
they were. James had been in his service over two 
years, and had not only received handsome wages for 
his trouble, but been the recipient of all his cast-off 
clothes. Dr. Barnes, too, had eaten many and many a 
dinner at his expense, besides having had his bills 
settled regularly every Christmas. But neither of 
them had said a good word for him, or expressed a re- 
gret that he was gone. All they thought of was how 
his wife would take the announcement of his demise, 
and what formalities were to be gone through in con- 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


45 


nection with it. He remembered that he had left the 
doctor ten pounds, in his will, to purchase a mourning 
ring, and he felt sorry for it. He wanted very much 
to accompany them, and witness how his wife and 
daughter took the news which they had to tell them. 
But, notwithstanding every endeavor, he could not de- 
tach himself from his cast-off body. He could not 
shake himself free of it. It seemed to cling to him 
like the Old Man of the Sea to Sindbad. 

Ethel Aldwyn had passed a sleepless night. The 
interview she had had with the Professor, just before 
retiring to rest, had made her heart beat so fast, and, 
altogether, produced so much agitation in her frame, 
that all desire to sleep seemed to have been banished 
from her eyes. She was nervous, and frightened, in 
the bargain ; she dreaded a renewal of the warfare as 
soon as her husband should join her ; so she had lain 
awake, listening for his footstep on the stairs, till she 
worked herself into a state of agitation. When she 
found that he did not come, she became more nervous 
still. That betokened that he was so angry he refused 
to speak to her again.. Perhaps he meant to take her 
at her word, and send her home to her parents at 
Beere, as soon as day dawned. She longed to see her 
old home, poor girl ; and she would have been happier 
than she dared say, if she could have thought she 
would never have seen her husband again. Still, the 
idea, however welcome, was too novel not to be perplex- 
ing, and she could not rest in consequence. The message 
that Mary brought her, with a very mysterious face — 
that Doctor Barnes wanted to see her, because the 


46 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


Professor was not at all well — conveyed no notion 
whatever of the truth to her mind. Professor Aldwyn 
had been used to consider himself very ill at times, 
though he never could be brought to think any one 
else so. She believed their dispute of the night before 
must have had something to do with his sending for 
the doctor ; but she jumped out of bed quickly enough 
when she heard it. 

“ Not really ill, surely, Mary ! ” she exclaimed. ‘‘And 
what can Doctor Barnes want to see me about it for, 
when, as you know, the master will never let any one 
touch his medicines but himself?” 

“ That was the message I was ordered to give you, 
if you please, ma’am,” replied the maid, primly, as if she 
would say : “ I could tell you a deal more if I might” — 
“And I do think the master is worse than usual ; and, 
the doctor, he think badly of him.” 

Ethel turned pale. 

“ O, Mary, you don’t say so ? Give me my stockings 
and shoes ; there’s a good girl ; and get my tea-gown 
out of the wardrobe. I must run down just as I am. 
The doctor will excuse me. Where is he ? In the 
library? ” 

“ No, ma’am,” replied the girl, with a shudder; “he 
is in your boo-dore.” 

The boudoir was next the bedroom ; and, in another 
minute, Ethel was in the presence of Doctor Barnes. 

“ Doctor ! ” she cried ; “ do tell me at once. What 
is the matter with my husband ? Where is he ? Why 
have you not brought him up to his own room ? ” 

“ He is coming up, directly, my dear Mrs. Aldwyn,” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


47 


returned the doctor ; “ that is, if you will compose 
yourself. I have bad news for you ; but you must try 
and bear it bravely.” 

Bad news ! ” repeated Ethel. 

“Yes; I have told you before that the Professor’s 
heart action was not entirely satisfactory, and that it 
behooved him to be careful of excitement or worry, 
have I not ?” 

“ Yes,” faltered Ethel ; “ but is it / who have worried 
him, doctor ? ” 

“ You, my dear child,” said the doctor, paternally. 
“ Why, what put such an idea into your head? No; 
certainly not. But I understand from your servants 
that there was a disturbance here yesterday, before 
Master Gilbert left home.” 

“ O, yes, doctor ; a sad disturbance. They quar- 
reled, and that, necessarily, upset my husband. Is 
that the cause of his illness ? ” 

“ I am afraid it must have had a bad effect upon the 
Professor, the action of the heart being so slow ; and 


“ But how was he taken ill ? ” asked Mrs. Aldwyn. 
“ Shall I go to him. Doctor Barnes ? Does he want 
me ? ” 

“ No, Mrs. Aldwyn ; he does not want you. He 
will never want you on earth again. Do you under- 
stand me ? ” 

A frightened look came into her eyes. 

“You mean — O ! surely not ! — that — that — he — ” 

“Yes; you have guessed it. I mean that he has 
gone beyond our assistance — that he is dead. Don’t 


48 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


excite yourself, pray,” said the doctor, who had a 
horror of feminine hysterics. “ Don’t scream. It can 
do him no good ; but try to be thankful that he has 
died without pain.” 

“ Are you quite sure of that ? ” asked Ethel. 

Quite sure. His death was due to failure of the 
action of the heart. He must have died in his sleep, 
or nearly so. I have anticipated such an end for him 
for some time past. Now, will you take my advice 
and return to your own room, whilst we bring the 
body up-stairs ?” 

She turned from him without another word, and re- 
entered her bedroom. But when she found herself 
alone, with the door locked behind her, she burst into 
a natural flood of weeping, during which she kept on 
murmuring to herself : O, poor Henry ! poor Henry ! 
To be called away so suddenly, without any prepara- 
tion ; and when his last words to Gilbert were so cruel 
and unkind. God forgive him. And I was angry with 
him, too. May God forgive me, also. I wouldn’t 
have spoken to him as I did, if I had known it would 
so soon be over. Poor Henry! How little love he 
gained for himself during this life 1 ” 


49 


CHAPTER IV. 

WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF HIM. 

As soon as the doctor had time to think calmly, 
he decided that it would be better to leave the Pro- 
fessor’s body in the library, until it was carried to the 
grave. 

Why should that poor, young creature up-stairs be 
made more nervous than necessary? Besides, if she 
elects to remain in this house, her bedroom will be 
full of unpleasant memories. No, it will be quite 
easy to lay the body out here on the long table, and 
let it be taken hence to the cemetery. James, I 
will go home now, and send some one, at once, to 
do all that is necessary for your poor master. Mean- 
while, you must keep the key of the room yourself, 
and take care that no one, especially your mistress, 
gets access to it. When everything is arranged de- 
cently, and in order, you can take the key to Mrs. 
Aldwyn, and tell her what we have done. I will 
return this afternoon, and ascertain her wishes about 
the funeral. Is there any one, you know of, to whom 
I should telegraph on behalf of your mistress, or the 
late Professor ? ” 

“Missus, she has plenty of friends,” replied the 
man. “ Her people, they live down at Beere, in 
Devonshire ; but as for ’im,” indicating the corpse, 


50 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


with a backward-cast thumb, “ I don’t believe there’s 
many as would care the one way or the other.” 

^‘Ah, perfiaps not,” remarked the doctor. But 
Mrs. Aldwyn is too young to be left alone at such a 
time ; so I shall wire the news to her father and 
mother, and then they can do as they choose. Here is 
the key. Now, mind you are careful of the directions 
I have given you.” The servant promised, and the 
doctor departed. 

When the loquacious old women arrived to pull and 
turn about his body ; to undress it, wash it, put on it a 
clean night-shirt, stretch it out on a board laid on the 
library table, and envelop it in a sheet, the Professor 
was keenly conscious of the whole proceedings. He 
did his very best to sever the invisible links that bound 
him to his dead self, and which compelled him to listen 
to every word that was interchanged with James or 
Sarah. But all in vain. It seemed as though a cord 
of iron bound him to the corpse, and forced him to 
hear all the unkind things people were saying of him, 
now that he was gone. 

“ Well, he is as plain a body as ever I see,” said one 
old hag, as she washed his face and dried it with a 
rough towel. “ I wonder what the pretty, young lady 
up-stairs was thinking of when she threw herself away 
on such as he. ’Ideous, I calls ’im, with that sandy hair, 
and motley complexion.” 

Ah, but he was very clever, you see,” quoth James. 

A scientist, as they calls it ; and clever people ain’t 
’ansome, as a rule, you know.” 

“ O, fiddle,” exclaimed the other lady, irreverently. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


51 


‘‘ Don’t yer tell me. Brains ain’t got nothing to do 
with noses. But I suppose ’e was awful rich. That’s 
what the gals marries for mostly, now-a-days.” 

“Ah, well,” said James, confidentially, “it’s early 
times to say much ; but I don’t s’pose as she’ll miss him, 
nor find no difficulty in getting some one to fill ’is 
place ; twiggez-vous ? ” 

“ Lor’, Mr. James, you are allays so funny-like. But ’tis 
’ard for a woman to go through life alone ; so, who’s 
to blame ’er ? I am sure if ’e had been my lot, I 
should have got a better-looking one, as soon as I had 
the chance.” 

“ Old brute,” thought the Professor. Indeed, he 
said it ; but no sound broke the stillness of the air. 
The women, having completed their gruesome task, 
tied up his chin with a white handkerchief, making 
him look just like an old woman ; and, having placed 
two pennies on his eyelids to keep them closed, they 
pulled down the blinds, tidied the room, and walked 
away on tip-toe, in case they met any of the members 
of the family. The Professor looked round him in dis- 
may. For how long was he to remain a prisoner there ? 
Was he condemned, throughout eternity, to walk, or 
lie, or sit beside this wretched carcass, for which he 
had no further use ? He retained all his senses, his 
brains, eyesight, hearing, and feeling. Why could he 
not use them ? If this was what had been described 
to him as “ the other world,” he would rather be re- 
solved into dust with the body he saw before him. 
How time went, he had no idea ; but some hours later, 
perhaps, he heard the key again turn in the lock ; this 


52 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


time very slowly, and uncertainly, and then, after a 
pause, as though the visitor lacked the courage to 
enter, light footsteps crossed the threshold, the owner 
of which was expostulating with some one who was 
trying to drag her backwards. 

Come, dear Maddy, be brave. Why, what is 
there to be frightened of ? Do you suppose poor papa 
would harm you, even if it were possible for him to 
do so ? ” 

“ No, no ; it is not that. Don’t think me so foolish. 
But, oh, Mumsey, darling, I don’t want to look at him. 
It is very wicked of me, I know ; but I cannot forget 
dear Gilbert, out in all this wretched weather, friend- 
less and alone, without money, and without a home. 
And when I think of it, I feel I cannot enter this room 
as I ought.” 

My, dear, do you mean to say you cannot forgive 
poor papa, even now ? ” 

No, I can’t ; and if I said otherwise I should tell a 
lie. What difference can his death make ? Can it 
bring back Gilbert to us ? ” 

^‘Yes, dearest; it can, and it shall,” replied Ethel, 
as she kissed her step-daughter. It was the first thing 
I thought of ; you may be sure of that. I have wired 
to my solicitor to set inquiries on foot at once ; and 
kind old Doctor Barnes has promised to assist us all 
in his power. Cheer up, dear Maddy. We shall have 
Gilbert home again, I hope, before the funeral takes 
place.” 

This 4 pleasant,” thought the Professor ; that 
rebellious boy, who actually slapped me in the face, is 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


53 


to be reinstated, with due honor, in order to follow me 
with appropriate rejoicings, I suppose, to my last home. 
O if I could only get into my body again, what a dis- 
appointment I would give them all.” 

He was so close to the corpse that, as his wife ap- 
proached it, he could touch her. 

As Ethel, unconsciously, felt his spiritual presence, she 
shuddered. ‘‘ How very cold it is,” she said ; “ I wonder 
if Doctor Barnes ordered them to leave the windows 
open. Courage, dear Maddy.” 

She drew down the sheet, which shrouded the figure, 
as she spoke, and gazed at the dead body of her hus- 
band. His daughter also looked at it in silence. 

“ Poor papa,” sighed Ethel, at last. “ How much 
happier he would be at this moment, if he had only 
considered others a little, as well as himself.” 

“ Mumsey,” said Madeline, in an awed whisper, “ Do 
you think he is in heaven ? ” 

O Maddy dear, don’t ask me. I hope so ; I do, 
indeed ; for it is so terrible to think otherwise ; but 
we are told that only those who love God can go to 
heaven, and, therefore, I do not know what to think. 
But we can always pray for him, my dear, that his sins 
may be forgiven, and that he may find hope and peace 
at the last.” 

It seems so strange to me,” replied the girl, as she 
gazed at the placid face of the dead; “ he looks so 
calm, so much at rest. And yet, when one remem- 
bers ” 

That is just what we must not do, my dear,” ex- 
claimed Ethel ; we must not remember. We must do 


54 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


our utmost to forget, and trust that God may have for- 
gotten also.” 

“ O Mumsey, that is such self-deception. God does 
not forget. How can He ? And if He were inclined 
to do so, the lives that have been made so wretched by 
my father’s means, would cry out against him from the 
ground.” 

“ Maddy, you must not say such things. They are 
wicked. It is unnatural to hear a child speak thus of 
her own father.” 

Then, what was it to hear a father speak to his own 
child, as papa spoke to my darling brother Gilbert ? 
Take me away, Mumsey. Perhaps you are right ; but 
your ideas are too high for me. I am only very human, 
and I can’t forget. I don’t think I ever shall, either in 
this world or the world to come.” 

“ O, it is all very dark and miserable,” cried Ethel. 
“ I am so glad Doctor Barnes telegraphed for my 
darling mother. She is the best friend I have ever 
had. You are right, dear Maddy. This is no place for 
us. I thought we ought to come, but I was wrong. 
We should have waited till our memories were less 
keen and bitter. I meant to have said a prayer by his 
side ; but the very sight of him lying h'ere, as impassive 
to our sufferings, and deaf to our entreaties, as he was 
on earth, has driven it out of my head. Let us go 
back to our own rooms, dear, and pray for ourselves, 
that the trials we have undergone may have a salutary 
effect on us, and make us more considerate of the feel- 
ings of our fellow creatures.” 

The two women left the room with their arms twined 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


55 


round each other’s waists ; but without one backward 
glance to where the husband and father lay beneath his 
shroud. 

I can’t stand this much longer,” thought the Pro- 
fessor. Is there no way by which I can escape being 
tortured after this fashion ? ” 

“ Not yet,” answered a voice near him. 

He turned, and saw a majestic figure standing by his 
side. It was that of a man, with a mild, calm, but de- 
cided expression. His hair and beard betokened that he 
had reached the prime of manhood ; but his eyes were 
filled with the fire of youth. He was clothed in a long, 
flowing, white garment, something like the toga of the 
ancient Romans, which clung about his person, without 
incommoding his movements, and fell to his feet in 
straight, classical folds. 

“ Who are you ? ” asked the Professor. “ I have 
never seen you before.” 

“ Because your spiritual eyes have not been opened 
to perceive me,” replied the man. “ But I have been 
with you since you were born into the earth sphere. I 
am your controlling spirit ; what you would call your 
guardian angel.” 

But what is your name ? ” 

‘‘You can call me by the name by which I was 
known whilst I lived in this world — John Forest. I 
was a chemist and a scientist, like yourself. It is from 
my influence that your own proclivities arose.” 

“ Why have you not discovered yourself to me 
before ? ” 

“ I was there, always ; but you could not perceive 


56 THE DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE. 

me. Your eyes have been too much fixed ori yourself 
and your pursuits, to feel a spiritual influence. The 
spirituality in you has been neglected, until it has 
burned down like the last flicker of an expiring rush- 
light. It was time you left this sphere, for soon it 
would have been extinguished altogether.” 

“ But, if you possess any power, I beg of you to take 
me from this place. I have done with earth, it ^eems. 
Why cannot I quit it, and go either to heaven — or 
hell ? ” 

‘‘ Don’t be in a hurry. You will go to the place you 
have made for yourself, soon enough. At present, my 
orders are to keep you here. You have much to learn, 
and to endure. The first of your lessons begins in this 
house.” 

‘‘You will not leave me?” said the Professor, 
trembling. 

“ No ; God never leaves any one of His creatures 
alone. I shall be near you, though you may not see 
me.” 

“ But tell me, why must I stay by this horrible body ? 
What link is there, now, between it and me ? ” 

“You stay because you cannot free yourself. You 
have lived for that body alone ; you have riveted the 
chain between it and your spirit, until it is so fast 
that it is impossible to break it all at once. Have 
patience, and it will be broken. But I do not promise 
you that your next experience will be pleasanter.” 

“ Why must I listen to all the rubbish the friends I 
have left behind talk of me ? Cannot you close my 
ears ? It annoys me.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


57 


I know it does, because you feel it to be true. 
That is the first lesson you are ordained to learn — the 
A B C of your spiritual progress. What you hear, 
you have dictated for yourself. It is the effect of 
your own conduct whilst on earth. Until you know 
what you have lost, and what you might have gained, 
there will be no progression for you.” 

Why are you going ? ” 

“ Because the time has not arrived for me to instruct 
you. Whilst you remain here, learn for yourself.” 

Again, the Professor was left alone with the decaying 
thing which had been his earthly envelope ; and all 
night he had to stand beside it, viewing the progress 
of its corruption, and noting, sadly, that it lay there 
alone, as he was. He had heard, in bygone times, of 
how disconsolate widows and orphans spent days and 
nights in agony, praying beside their dead, struggling 
with their despair, and fainting under the sense of their 
irrevocable loss. But no one came to weep or pray 
over him. The house was very hushed and silent. 
No sounds of laughter, or loud talking, reached him 
where he stood ; but the Professor remembered that 
his home had never been a merry one. He had 
chidden his children whenever they happened to make 
an unwonted noise, because it interfered with his 
studies ; and they had, generally, carried their mirth 
out of doors, or into the houses of other people. It 
was nothing very uncommon, therefore, to find the 
house silent. Late at night there came the under- 
taker’s men to measure his corpse for its coffin. The 
Professor thought they did it in a very unfeeling man- 


58 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


ner. They did not laugh or talk much. They hurried 
over the proceedings in a most business-like way, one 
man taking his length and breadth, with a tape 
measure, whilst the other wrote the numbers down in 
a memorandum book; and James stood by with the 
utmost indifference. 

“Going to have a first-class funeral, I hear,” said one 
of the undertakers to the servant. 

“ O, yes ; I’ve no doubt of it,” he replied. “ I s’pose 
the 'widder has got all the money, so it’s the least 
she can do. They weren’t over and above sweet 
on one another during his life-time, and they’re allays 
the ones as tries to make it up with a big splash after- 
wards.” 

“ She’s a nice lady, though, and a pretty one, is your 
missus,” said the other. 

“Ah, she is that ; and didn’t get any too good a time 
of it, I can tell you, what with his fads and his tempers. 
Why, his only son, a nice young gentleman, too, ran 
away from home yesterday afternoon ; and Mary, the 
housemaid, she do say that she was on the upper land- 
ing while the row was a going on, and Master Gilbert, 
he up with his fist, and hit the master right in the eye.” 

“ And sarve him right, too, if he ill-treated the lad,” 
observed the undertaker’s man. “ I’ve got nine on 
’em myself, and find it hard work, sometimes, to put 
bread in their mouths ; but I’ve never hit one on ’em 
in their lives, and never will. Lor ! go against one’s 
own flesh and blood ! I’d be afraid to face my Maker 
if I did. Come on. Bill. I’ve got it all down. The 
shell will be round the fust thing in the morning. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


59 


mister, and the outer coffin by nightfall. I hear the 
funeral’s to be on Thursday. Sharp work, eh ? ” 

Well, I don’t s’pose she’ll want to keep ’im here 
longer than necessary; and the sooner these jobs is 
over the better, to my mind. I daresay the pore missus 
will be wanting to get away for a holiday. She hasn’t 
had one since I came into the house, and that I can 
swear.” 

The Professor was indignant at hearing this conver- 
sation ; but he had no power of refuting the men’s argu- 
ments ; so he was compelled to listen in silence, 
whether he would or no, and was thankful when the 
business was concluded, and they left him in peace. 
Not quite in peace, however; for, though he was still 
human enough to feel angry and injured by the opin- 
ions he heard from all sides, he was already beginning 
to wonder if what they said was true. His brain was 
now his most powerful organ. The desires and weak- 
nesses of the body had, in a measure, left him, though 
he still felt their influence ; but his brain was in fuller 
working power than it had been whilst clothed with the 
flesh. He could think more clearly, see more clearly, 
and reflect more clearly than he had ever done in life ; 
and his thoughts kept wandering back to his son, 
Gilbert, and the probable future that lay before him. 
Would the sins of it, and the miseries of it all lie at his 
door, as Ethel had told him, the night before? Would 
he be obliged to expiate the frailties or crimes which 
his undue harshness might cause his son to commit ? 

‘Wes,” replied the voice of John Forest, by his side; 
“ even unto the third and fourth generation.” 


6o 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


My God, it will be hell,” said the Professor. 

It willh^ hell,” replied the voice. 

The Professor’s head sunk upon his breast. Already, 
in so short a time — only four and twenty hours after 
he had quitted his body — his eyes were beginning to 
see daylight, like the eyes of a blind-born puppy open- 
ing to the wonderment of life. 

The following day the Professor had more visitors. 
His wife again stole into the room, accompanied by 
her mother, Mrs. Fellows. They looked at the corpse 
for a few minutes in complete silence ; for, however 
bad or unpleasant a man may have been, death is a 
solemn matter for all of us ; and the less hope we 
entertain of a fellow-creature’s happiness in the other 
world, the more solemn it becomes. Ethel’s face was 
very grave ; so was that of her mother ; but neither of 
them had been crying. The Professor could see that 
plainly. “ Death is a terrible thing, mother,” said 
Mrs. Aldwyn, “ especially when it comes so suddenly.” 

“ I quite agree with you, my dear child,” replied 
Mrs. Fellows ; “but, at the same time, I cannot but 
perceive that this is a most blessed release for you. 
O my darling ! how often, since your ill-fated mar- 
riage have I lain awake at night, praying to God to 
make some way of escape for you. You have been 
miserable. I know it well. You are not the same girl 
who was married in Beere church two years ago. 
You look ten years older. How can you expect me 
to be sorry for an event that opens out a happier future 
for you ? ” 

“ No, darling mother ; I suppose not. But it was my 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 6l 

own fault. I married him with my eyes open ; so I 
have no right to complain.” 

*^You married him because we were so poor, and 
you thought one mouth less to feed at home would be 
a relief to your father and me. Don’t try to make the 
sacrifice less, my dearest girl. We recognized it, and 
thought it noble of you. But had I known he would 
have treated you as he has, curbing all your innocent 
enjoyments, and trying to transform your bright nature 
into a copy of his own, I would have seen you dead, 
sooner than you should have thrown yourself away on 
him.” 

Never mind, dearest mother. It is all over now, 
thank God ; and we must try and forget it. But I am 
almost frightened for poor Maddy. She is grieving so 
bitterly for her brother, that I cannot persuade her even 
to think kindly of her father. All she says is : ‘ Don’t 
mention the subject to me, please. Let me try and 
forget he ever lived. If I don’t, I shall say something 
to shock you.’ Isn’t it dreadful, mother, a daughter to 
feel so with regard to her own father?” 

“ It may be very dreadful, my dear; but the dread- 
ful part of it lies with the father, and not with the 
daughter. A man who goes through life selfishly seek- 
ing his own comfort, and aims and ends, without the 
least regard to those of his wife and children, cannot 
expect to be mourned when he passes away. ‘ As ye 
have sown, so shall ye reap.' It is the law of retri- 
bution.” 

It is very, very sad,” said Ethel, gazing at her 
husband’s corpse. 


62 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ It would have been sadder still if he had lived, my 
child ; so put away all false sentiment, and be thankful 
for your release. Don’t stay in this room ; it will 
only make you morbid.” 

The elder lady turned to leave, as she spoke ; but 
the wife lingered a moment by the silent figure on the 
table. 

Goodby, Henry,” she murmured, as she laid a 
little bouquet of roses in the dead man’s hands. “ We 
were very unhappy together ; but, perhaps, I was in 
fault as much as you. Let us try to forgive each 
other ; and, then, some day, we may meet again in 
peace. I wonder if you can see and hear me now, and 
read my heart, and know how sorry I am that our 
married life was such a disappointment for us both.” 

How hard the Professor tried to speak, and tell her 
that he was also sorry for the past. But his words of 
repentance were borne away, voiceless, on the air ; and 
not the suspicion of a whisper reached the ears of his 
girl-wife. 

“ Mother,” she said, presently, turning to Mrs. Fel- 
lows, “ ought I to kiss him ? They say if you don’t 
touch a corpse you dream of it. Is it a duty 7 Ought 
I?” 

“ Certainly not, my dear, if you don’t feel inclined. 
For my part, I shouldn’t think of such a thing. He 
wasn’t a kissable person during his life-time, and, I am 
sure, he isn’t after his death.” 

I couldn’t ! I couldn’t ! ” returned her daughter 
with a shudder, as she turned and followed Mrs. 
P^ellows from the room. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 63 

“Take me away from this place, for Heaven’s sake,” 
exclaimed the Professor, faintly, “ or it will kill me.” 

“These are idle words. Nothing could kill you 
whilst on earth ; nothing can kill you now. You will 
live for ever and ever. How you live depends upon 
yourself. But, if you wish to leave your body now, you 
can. Come ! ” 

The controlling spirit stretched forth his hand, and 
grasped that of the Professor. He experienced a sen- 
sation as though he were being pressed downwards 
against water ; but, before he could express any sur- 
prise at the novelty of it, he found himself standing 
with John Forest on an illimitable plane of open 
country. 


64 


CHAPTER V. 

THE PROFESSOR MEETS FIIS FRIENDS. 

The Professor gazed around him with surprise. On 
the greensward, beneath his feet, were dotted innumer- 
able flowers, such as he had known upon the lower 
earth — daisies, buttercups and dandelions. A river ran 
through the campaign ; and, in the distance, he could 
perceive belts of trees, and fields of waving corn and 
barley. 

“To what part of the habitable globe have you 
brought me, John Forest?” he asked. “This is not 
England, as far as I can see, and yet I seem to 
recognize the surroundings.” 

“ If, by the habitable globe, you mean the insignifi- 
cant planet we term the earth,” replied his guide, “this 
country has nothing whatever to do with it. You are 
standing now in one of the first or lowest spheres. It 
is called the ^ Sphere of Meeting’ ; for here, if you have 
any friends, eager to welcome you to the Spiritual 
World, you will have an opportunity of seeing and 
being recognized by them.” 

The Professor looked around him, eagerly. There^ 
was a large mass of men, women and children walking 
up and down the flower be-gemmed grass, every now 
and then turning their eyes towards the entrance of the 
long stretch of country, as fresh groups of spirits 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


65 


arrived, under the charge of their guardian angels. 
The Professor witnessed more than one glad greeting 
in the first few seconds he stood there ; and began to 
wonder when he should see his father and mother, and 
his first wife, Susan Clumber. He had not always 
been the cold-natured, selfish creature who had just left 
the earth body. There had been a time when, if he 
had yielded to the gentle counsel and entreaties of a 
woman who loved him, he might have turned out a 
very different man ; but he had allowed his lower 
nature to get the better of his spiritual inclinations, 
and so she, Susie, his first wife, and the only woman 
who had ever excited anything like love in his breast, 
had faded out of life, weary of trying to incite him to a 
better and nobler existence, and he had lived on to insult 
her pure memory in the ears of her only son. The 
Professor had almost forgotten Susie whilst on earth ; 
but, now that he witnessed several happy and excited 
greetings passing between reunited husbands and 
wives, his thoughts reverted to her, and he mentally 
pictured how pleasant it would be to find himself re- 
ceived into her open arms, and permitted to forget all 
the annoyances of earth, in the solace and renewal of 
his early love. He was looking eagerly into the faces 
of the women who passed up and down before him, for 
a glimpse of her, when John Forest asked him whom 
he was seeking. 

My wife, Susan Clumber,” he answered, ‘Hell me 
how I can find her. Is she living on this plane ? ” 

“ That I do not know,” was the reply. “ But, if there 
is a strong attraction between you, she is sure to know. 


66 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


by intuition, that you have arrived, and will hasten to 
meet you here.” 

“There is my father,” exclaimed the Professor, ex- 
citedly, pointing with his finger ; “ there, do you not 
see that old man, with the long beard ? That is my 
father. Doctor Benjamin Aldwyn. He was a well- 
known surgeon on earth. Let me go to him. He will 
give me all the information and assistance I require. 
And that is my brother George and my sister Mary walk- 
ing with him. O, do let me go and make myself 
known to them.” 

“ By all means,” said John Forest, loosing his hand ; 
“ and when you have done so you can come back here 
and tell me of your success.” 

The Professor flew from his grasp, like an arrow from 
a bow, and joined the group he had pointed out. It 
consisted of the relations he had described ; but it 
was to his father that the Professor addressed himself 
first. 

“ Father,” he exclaimed, with outstretched hands ; 
“ you know me, do you not ? I am your son, Henry. 
I have just come over from the earth plane, and I feel 
so lonely here. How glad I am to meet you ! ” 

“ Why.? ” demanded the old man, without advancing 
to greet his son. 

“Because — ” stammered the Professor; “but why 
should you ask me ? Why should I not be pleased to 
meet you and my brother and sister again ? ” 

“ The affections which we have neglected to cultivate 
whilst on earth are not born and ripened to perfection 
in a day, Henry,” was the reply. “ Where were you 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


67 


when I lay dying, and eagerly counting the moments 
of my life ebbing away, lest they should all go before 
I had given my forgiveness and blessing to my ungrate- 
ful son.” 

“ I did not know — I never imagined — ” 

“ No quibbles here,” said the father, sternly. “There 
is no possibility of deception in these spheres. You 
declined to believe I was dying, because, in your sel- 
fishness, you were engaged on some experiments which 
had cost you money ; and you feared it would be 
wasted, if interrupted. So your father left the world 
without bidding you farewell, unknowing that once 
quit of the burden of the flesh, his spiritual sight would 
be so clear that he would no longer have any desire 
to see or communicate with you.” 

“ Is that possible ? ” cried the unhappy Professor. 
“ Will you not recognize me, then, as your child — your 
son ? ” 

“ The ties of nature are not recognized here, unless 
they have been accompanied by the ties of the spirit. 
What sympathy do you expect my spirit to have with 
yours ? I see you now as you are. A man eaten up 
with love of self, with less spirituality than many a 
little child ; for you have trodden it under foot, and 
dwarfed and stunted it, until it has dwindled down to 
an abortion. Had you given the reins to the natural 
love God implanted in your breast, for the good of 
your fellow creatures, you would have nourished and 
enlarged it ; but, as it is, you have nearly killed it. 
The only thing which survives the pettiness of earth, 
is Love. If you cannot bring that in your hand I see 


68 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


nothing to communicate with. There can be no fellow- 
ship between God and Belial.” 

“ Shall we never be anything to one another again, 
then ? ” asked the Professor. “ I remember how proud 
you used to be of my success in science, and said I 
was destined to make the old name famous. I have 
succeeded beyond my utmost hopes. My writings are 
a power in Europe ; my experiments followed with the 
keenest interest, and my decisions listened to with 
interest and attention. What do you want more ? 
Have I not fulfilled the highest hopes you ever enter- 
tained for me ? ” 

“Your experiments — your success — your decisions,” 
repeated the old man, with contempt ; “ what value 
are they, do you suppose, to us in the blessed freedom 
of spirituality? Less than the dirt beneath your feet. 
The humblest, most ignorant creature on earth, who 
passes over here with a heart overflowing with love for 
his kind, is placed on a higher eminence than a king or 
a philosopher, who has lived only for himself and his 
own success. Look at the spirit who enters the sphere 
at the present moment.” 

The Professor glanced in the direction indicated by 
his father’s gesture, and saw a poor, crippled form being 
supported into the sphere. Her features were seamed 
and scarred as by some terrible disease ; her figure was 
bent nearly double ; her eyes were swollen as with many 
tears, and her face weary and careworn. She looked 
round her fearfully, but expectantly, as she appeared 
amongst them. But a shriek of joy heralded her ap- 
proach. From every part of the plane came flying 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


69 


happy, joyous spirits, who crowded round the poor, 
fainting figure, and embraced and blessed her, and bore 
her away amongst them, when, to his astonishment, the 
Professor saw that she was suddenly transformed. 
Her lameness and scars had disappeared, and her 
features wore a look of spiritual beauty that trans- 
formed them to an angelic radiance. 

“ What is the meaning of it ? ” he asked his father. 

The meaning is self-obvious. This woman, poor, 
diseased and ungainly, had yet a heart so full of love 
that she forgot her own sufferings in trying to alleviate 
those of her fellow-creatures. So her reward has 
come. Freed from the shackles of earth, she enters 
upon eternal happiness. She could not miss it. The 
Master had promised it to her : ‘ Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these, my 
brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’ ” 

The Professor turned to regard his own features in 
a running brook close by. They were not in the least 
altered. He still possessed the sandy hair and mot- 
tled complexion, on which the layers-out had com- 
mented so uncomplimentally. 

“ But what has changed her so ? ” he asked ; / am 

not changed.” 

It is love that has changed her — the love of 
God — and happiness that glorifies her countenance,” 
replied the old man. Do you think that spirits carry 
their diseases and deformities into the spiritual world ? 
That would be impossible. Even when we pass away 
at an advanced age, as I did, we renew our youth as 
soon as the spirit within us commences to soar up- 


70 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


wards. When the body entirely leaves us, with all 
its associations, memories and regrets, we shine as the 
stars in heaven ; but not till then.” 

“ But you look the same to me, father. I recognized 
you directly. You are not changed ! ” 

“ In reality, I am ; but your eyes are still carnal ; so 
you see me as they depict me — as rose-colored glasses 
make all things rose-color. When you have learned to 
recognize the love of God, my son, as seen through the 
love of your fellow-men, you, too, will be changed.” 

‘‘ And till then — ” said the Professor, mournfully. 

“Till then I have not the power, if I had the will, to 
remain near you. In this world we cannot force our- 
selves to be outwardly affectionate, when, inwardly, we 
feel estranged. There is no deception here. All 
thoughts are revealed ; and the very difference in our 
spirits must necessarily keep us apart. You must 
have perceived that neither your brother nor sister 
have appeared to recognize your presence. It is be- 
cause they do not see you. They passed away when 
still young, and have not preserved their carnal pro- 
clivities as forcibly as I have. Their spirits are not in 
touch with yours. They have not even heard our 
conversation.” 

“ Then, am I to be banished from the company of 
my own family forever?” exclaimed the Professor in 
despair. 

“ Not so. When you have purified yourself through 
the exercise of love, we shall be able to communicate 
more freely. Farewell!” 

. “ Stay, father, one moment, for pity’s sake. Tell me 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 71 

where I can find Susan, my first wife. She, at least, 
will not quite have forgotten our early love.” 

Have you not perceived her presence ? She is 
walking just in front of you, between those two little 
children — the still-born babies, over the loss of which 
she so much grieved.” 

“ That girl beside the weeping willow tree ? But she 
looks quite young, not more than twenty. And Susie 
was thirty-five when she died.” 

‘‘ Nevertheless, that is she. She was a loving, single- 
hearted woman. There was no obstacle to her pro- 
gressing as soon as she came over to our side.” 

But those children — they cannot be mine. I have 
only Madeline and Gilbert, who are both alive. These 
were born dead ; how can they live here ? ” 

“ They assuredly owe their earthly bodies to you. 
In the earthly sense, you are their father, though I do 
not think you will be allowed to communicate with 
them at present. But there is no death for those into 
whom God has breathed the breath of life. They 
lived before they were born ; therefore, they live for- 
ever. And that girl, as you call her, leading them by 
the hand, is Susan, their mother.” 

“ I must speak to her. Surely, surely, she cannot 
bear resentment, so kind and gentle as she was. She 
will receive me as if she were still on earth, and give 
me protection and shelter.” 

The Professor followed in the wake of Susan as he 
spoke. She had been a pretty woman whilst on earth, 
but she was much prettier now. Her fair hair hung 
down her neck in waving ringlets ; her large blue eyes 


72 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


were soft and ambient ; her graceful figure was draped 
with consummate taste, and her head and waist were 
wreathed with flowers. In either hand she held a 
child — one, a little boy, with dark locks and a brown, 
ruddy countenance ; the other, a girl, as fair and gentle- 
looking as herself. As the Professor remembered these 
charming children were his own, his spirit glowed with 
expectation ; and he thought it impossible that their 
mother could accord him as uncongenial a reception as 
his father had done. He advanced towards her, softly, 
lest she should be startled, calling her by her name 
of “ Susan ! Susan ! ” She turned and looked at him. 

“ Who are you,” she inquired, “ who calls me by 
my earthly name ? ” 

“ Who am I ? Cannot you see ? Your husband, 
Henry Aldwyn.” 

Susan regarded him attentively, but gravely. 

“ Now, that I look at you closely, I see that you are,” 
she replied, but without any further greeting. “ How 
long have you been here ? ” 

“ Have you no better welcome for me than that? ” 
he asked, in a tone of disappointment. 

I am glad, for your own sake, that you are freed 
from the fetters of the flesh ; but I fear there must be 
a bitter penance in store for you.” 

“ But are you not glad to see me again, Susan ? It 
is ten years since we parted. Do you remember your 
last illness, and how I took you to Hastings to try if 
the sea air would revive you, and how hard I tried to 
atone for any little disagreeableness that may have oc- 
curred before it.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


73 


Yes, because I was dying,” she replied ; “but, had 
I recovered, it would have been the same thing over 
again. You never really cared for any one but your- 
self, Henry, and, I fear, the habit is not purged out of 
you, even yet.” 

“ Then you have quite forgotten our early love — the 
days of our honeymoon — the time when you thought 
me all that a man should be?” 

“ O, no ; but I cannot remember them without re- 
membering, also, how bitterly I was deceived. We 
should never have come together, Henry. We are too 
opposite in character to assimilate either in that world 
or this.” 

“ Do you repudiate me, the same as my father and 
brothers and sisters have done ?” he demanded, bitterly. 

“ No ; there is no question of repudiation ; but here 
there is no dissembling. I cannot tell you how much 
I had to dissemble whilst I lived with you on earth, 
in order to preserve peace in the house. My life was 
a life of deception. People called me amiable ; but I 
was simply a deceiver. God mercifully delivers us 
from that here. If our spirits are not in sympathy 
with another spirit, we cannot stay near him. Some- 
thing in our magnetism drives us as wide asunder as 
the two poles of the earth. It is not our doing ; it is 
God’s decree. The only attraction here is when two 
spirits are in perfect sympathy with one another.” 

“And, doubtless, you have already found another 
spirit to sympathize with yours?” remarked the Pro- 
fessor, ironically. But Susan took his words in perfect 
good faith. 


74 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“Yes,” she answered, simply; “I was mated soon 
after I passed over. My affinity is no one whom I 
ever knew on earth. He lived many hundreds of years 
before I was born. But, of a necessity, he makes me 
happy. One cannot be unhappy in the sphere to 
which, by God’s goodness, I have attained.” 

“ If you do not live on this sphere, why did you 
come here this morning?” asked the Professor. 

“ I was told to come,” replied Susan. “ We are all 
under the orders of Almighty God. Perhaps it was to 
meet you. I did not ask, and I do not know. Oiir 
only duty is to obey.” 

The Professor was still so human that his feelings 
were becoming very much ruffled by her calm de- 
meanor. He had always expected, in a vague way, 
that, when he met his first wife again, all the differences 
of their married life would be dissolved, in some 
miraculous manner, and they would be lovers again 
for eternity. But all was so different from what he 
had been led to believe. 

“At all events,” he said, rather roughly, “these 
children are mine, and, I suppose, I have the right to 
ask to look at them.” 

Susan regarded him with calm surprise. 

“ These children !” she echoed. “O, no; how should 
they be ? All of them that belonged to you lies in 
Kensal Green Cemetery. Their spirits, happily for 
them, never lived to know you. They are essentially 
God’s little ones — too pure for contact with any one so 
fresh from earth as you are. They do not understand 
your language. They could not communicate with 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 7$ 

you if they would, or if I would permit them,” she 
added slowly. 

‘‘ You are complimentary,” said the Professor. 

‘‘ Don’t tempt me to be more so, Henry,” she re- 
plied. “ Why should I wish these pure, little spirits 
to communicate with your gross one ? What else but 
harm could you do them ? What have you done with 
the children God entrusted to your care ? Where is 
my Gilbert ? What is my Madeline growing up like ? ” 

“They have elected to go their own way,” he an- 
swered, sullenly, “ and must take the consequences. 
They have been stubborn and unruly from the begin- 
ning. And, now I am freed from the control of them, 
they will have to shift for themselves.” 

“ So much the worse would it be for you if it were 
so, Henry. But you mistake. Your purification will 
have to be worked out through these very children. 
The purgatory before you will be increased, or less- 
ened, as you undo the wrong you have wrought them 
in the past. They were a solemn charge committed to 
your keeping, and you have wofully neglected it. Do 
you think God means to lose these two souls, or to 
condemn them to punishment, whilst you^ the author 
of their rebellion, are able to suffer in their stead ? 
This is why you have been called away from earth so 
early and so suddenly. I see it now. The future of 
Madeline and Gilbert lie, in a great measure, in your 
hands. By working out their salvation you will secure 
your own. There will be no place for you here, till 
that task is accomplished.” 

“ Do you mean that I am to have no rest, then ? 


76 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

That, after fifty-five years of toil, I have been called 
away, only to be set a harder task than I have ever had 
yet — the reclamation of these two unloving and rebel- 
lious children ? ” 

Unloving, because you have never loved them ; 
rebellious, because you have set them an example of 
rebellion against your Maker. Yes; I mean what I 
said. Your future work does not lie here, but there 
said Susan, as she pointed downward towards the 
earth. 

“No one wants me here, and no one wants me 
there,” exclaimed the unhappy Professor. “Where 
shall I find rest for the sole of my feet ? This is hell, 
indeed.” 

“It is,” replied Susan, gently; “the hell you have 
made for yourself. There is no heaven and no hell in 
reality, Henry — not such as we are wrongly taught 
from infancy to believe in. We make our heaven, or 
we make our hell. What greater hell could there be 
than for a man to find (as you have just said) that no 
one wants him here, and no one wants him there? 
That the inhabitants of earth are glad to get rid of 
him, and the denizens of the spheres have forgotten 
that he existed ? And the reason is, because nothing 
but love lives forever. You have not cultivated that 
love in those around you ; what, then, have they to 
miss when you leave them ? What treasure have you 
laid up for yourself in heaven to draw upon at this 
eventful crisis of your life ? I loved you whilst on 
earth. You made me unhappy; still I loved you; for 
women are weak, and must have something to cling to 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


17 


whilst in the body ; and I was always hoping that, 
some day, you might return my love. But you know 
that you never did. I lived and died a disappointed 
woman ; but, as soon as I came over here, I grieved no 
more, because, with my spiritual eyes, I could see you 
were not worth grieving for. If you picked up what 
you believed to be a diamond of value, in the street, 
you would preserve it with the utmost care ; but, if a 
jeweler proved to you that it was only glass, you 
would throw it back into the nearest gutter. Spiritu- 
ality is the great jeweler who tests our diamond^ for 
us, Henry, and when we perceive their worthlessness 
we cease to lament their loss.” 

“ O, God ! ” moaned the miserable man. Thou art 
teaching me by means of a bitter lesson, indeed.” 

But not one that will last forever, Henry,” said 
Susan ; ‘‘and the sooner it begins, the sooner will it be 
accomplished.” 

“ How am I to begin it?” 

“ Ask your spirit guide to take you back to earth, 
and help you to remedy the evils you have wrought. 
You have left an unjust will behind you : unjust and 
ungenerous to the poor, young creature who took my 
place, and whom you have made almost as unhappy as 
you made me. You have driven our son, Gilbert, 
from your doors, and incited him to an act of folly, 
for which he will have to pay bitterly ; and you have, 
by your inconsideration and harshness, turned Made- 
line’s heart against you, till she is ready to curse your 
very mernory. Are these not things calling for God’s 
vengeance, unless you try to remedy them ? ” 


78 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ How is it possible ? Who will teach me how to do 
so? How can I, being out of my body, influence those 
who yet remain on the earth ? ” 

“ Had you cultivated your spirit more whilst you 
lived there, you would not have to ask me such a 
question,” replied Susan. ^^You would know that half 
the deeds, either for good or evil, committed by mortals, 
are instigated by the influence of spirits. But your 
guide can teach you that better than myself. Farewell.” 

“ And you can part with me thus, Susan ! My wife ! 
The only woman I ever loved ! ” he cried, in the agony 
of his remorse. 

She turned, and regarded him compassionately. 

‘‘You have never met j/our wife yet, Henry; but 
you will, some day, and be as happy as you will make 
her. But you must be purified first, as though by 
fire.” 

As she disappeared beneath the grove of trees, hold- 
ing her infants by the hand, the Professor turned to 
seek John Forest. 

“ Take me away from here,” he exclaimed, bitterly ; 

I am neither known, nor wanted. I am friendless, 
homeless, and alone.” 

“As you have made Gilbert,” said his guide, 

“ Don’t torture me more than is necessary, for God’s 
sake. The bitterness of hell is on me now. If you 
have the power, take me hence.” 

As the Professor spoke the words, he found himself 
back in the familiar precincts of his own house. 


79 


CHAPTER VI. 

HOME AGAIN. 

As the Professor passed the library door, he gave an 
involuntary shudder. 

“ Is that — that — thing there still ? ” he asked. 

John Forest smiled. 

“ Certainly not. It was buried three months ago. 
You left your earthly body in March. It is now June. 
Cannot you see that the trees are in leaf, and the birds 
are singing ? ’* 

But how can that be } ” asked the Professor, in a 
bewildered tone. ‘‘ I was only a few hours, surely, in 
the spiritual sphere.’’ 

“You may have thought so; but you mistake. We 
have no time in eternity. You were longer pass- 
ing from one world to the other than you imagined. 
Your spirit needed rest after so sudden a transit, and 
I gave it you. Now, you are in your old home again, 
and better able to judge of the effects your manage- 
ment has left behind it.” 

“ Where shall I go first ? ” asked the Professor, 
trembling. 

“ Why not visit your wife } You will find her in the 
drawing-room. Surely you have not forgotten the 
way } ” 

“ No ; but it seems so strange, so extraordinary, to 


8o 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


find myself here. All my links to this world are dis- 
solved. I have no interest left in it.” 

Have you any stronger ties in the other ? Wher- 
ever you go, you will find it the same. Your heart is 
shriveling up within itself from want of exercise. Let 
it expand, and the cords of love, which will shoot from 
it, will tie you, all too firmly, to both the worlds, in 
which you now find no companionship.” 

As he said these words, John Forest disappeared ; 
and the Professor glided into the drawing-room, alone. 

It was filled with the scent of flowers. Bowls, full 
of roses and lilies and mignonette, adorned the tables, 
whilst in the window recesses stood jardinieres of grow- 
ing plants, which filled the air with their fragrance. 
The Professor’s first feeling was one of indignation 
that Ethel should have wasted so much money. How 
often he had refused to let her purchase a few flowers, 
though he knew how dearly she loved them, and that, 
down at her own home in Devonshire, she had been 
used to enjoy them in profusion all the year round. 
But, then, he remembered he had lost the power to 
find fault with her simple, innocent tastes. She had 
the handling of the money now ; it was too late for 
him to think of objecting to what she did with it. 
Yet, it went to his soul to smell those flowers, bloom- 
ing in a London drawing-room in June. He wondered, 
too, if she had ever placed so much as a rose upon his 
tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery, where, he concluded, 
they had buried his body in the family vault. 

The next object his eyes took in was the form of 
Ethel, herself. How very much younger and prettier 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


8l 


and happier she looked than she had done whilst he 
was on earth. She was dressed in deep black, cer- 
tainly; but it was not his idea of a widow’s attire. 
She wore no cap upon her head, and her gown was not 
trimmed with crape. Her soft, abundant, brown hair 
was piled just in the old fashion, on the top of her 
head ; and, in her bosom, she wore a bunch of violets 
— actually, violets. The Professor thought her dress 
was quite indecent, considering he had only been gone 
for three months. Besides, what was she doing in 
town in the height of the season ? It would certainly 
have been more decorous for a recently-afflicted 
widow to hide her grief down at Worthing, or Bognor, 
or some equally dull watering-place. As he was mus- 
ing thus, James entered the room. James used to be 
attired in a plain, black suit, like a doctor’s servant ; 
now he flamed forth in livery — drab coat, with silver 
buttons and dark-green plush breeches — very hand- 
some, no doubt ; but decidedly not mourning. What 
could it all mean? The poor Professor fumed and 
fussed, as he stood by the window curtains, and noted 
these signs of forgetfulness of his wishes and com- 
mands. 

“Captain Standish, if you please, ma’am,” said 
James. 

“ O, show him up at once,” exclaimed Ethel, joy- 
fully. 

The Professor ground his teeth. How joyously she 
spoke. What a happy ring of freedom there was in 
her voice. And all for that Captain Standish, that 
dear cousin Ned ; the man he had said, almost with 


82 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


his last breath, she should never see again. It was 
abominable. It was too bad. There was no gratitude 
or affection in the world. And this was the girl he 
had raised from poverty to a condition of affluence. 
If it could only have been kept from him ; but to have 
to see and listen to it all. This was, indeed, retri- 
bution. 

Cousin Ned entered the room with a familiar and 
jaunty air ; an air of being certain of his welcome. It 
was, evidently, not the first time he had seen the 
widow since she had become such. 

“Well, my dear Ethel, and how are you this morn- 
ing? Jolly ?” he commenced. “Hadn’t we a pleasant 
time last evening? I don’t know when I have enjoyed 
a concert so much. I am so glad I persuaded you to 
go.” 

“You could not have enjoyed it more than I did,” 
replied Ethel, smiling ; “ only I was afraid people would 
say it was rather soon for me to be seen in public.” 

“ Hang people,” was the hearty rejoinder. “ What 
does it signify what they say, or think? It is ridiculous 
to suppose a young creature like you is to shut herself 
up ad infinitum. It isn’t as if you had ever cared for 
the man, nor as if he had made you a good husband. 
But you have been miserable quite long enough, in 
my opinion, and I shall get you out as often as I can 
whilst I am on shore.” 

“ You’re awfully kind to me, dear Ned,” replied 
Ethel, with a blush. 

Kind!'' repeated the Professor to himself, with a 
premonition of what was coming. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 83 

news of Gilbert, yet?” demanded the Captain. 

Ethel’s face changed. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head; “and I am be- 
ginning to be so nervous about him. Mr. Tredwell, 
my solicitor, says he cannot have shipped to sea under 
his own name, as he has searched all the books, and 
there is not a Gilbert Aldwyn amongst them. And 
yet, he says, if the lad had not gone to sea, the police 
would have been sure to have traced him on shore.” 

“ I think, so far, he is right,” replied Captain Stan- 
dish. “You see, there are always dozens of ships 
lying in the docks, which find themselves, at the last 
moment, short of hands ; and, if Gilbert found his way 
down there, it is nine chances to one that he got em- 
ployment the same day, and sailed the following morn- 
ing. Else, I can’t account for his not having heard 
of, or seen the announcement of his father’s death. 
He would surely have returned home to you in that 
case.” 

“O, yes,” said Mrs. Aldwyn; “Gilbert was very 
fond of me, but he had rather an obstinate disposi- 
tion ” 

“ Like his charming father ” interposed cousin 

Ned. 

“ Well, what can you expect, Ned ? ” said his hostess, 
apologetically. “ It is not the poor children’s fault if 
they inherit it from him. Maddy is just the same ; 
indeed, a great deal worse. She has given me a lot of 
trouble since her father’s death ; not that she is not 
just as affectionate as ever ; but she is determined to 
go her own way, and will not listen to my advice. The 


84 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


fact is, the Professor curbed both Gilbert and Madeline 
so unnaturally tight, that, now they have got their 
heads, you must expect them to bolt. But, to return 
to Gilbert ; his last words were that he would never come 
back whilst ^ that man ’ (meaning his father) lived. So 
I think, with you, that, had he heard of his death, he 
would have returned immediately.” 

“ If he has shipped, then, as a cabin boy, or cook, or 
the Lord knows what,” continued the Captain, ‘^we 
must conclude that he did go under an assumed name, 
which makes it very difhcult to trace him. However, 
these trading voyages seldom last more than a few 
months ; so we may confidently hope to see him back 
before long. He will make some inquiries about 
home, as soon as he touches shore again ; and then he 
will hear the good news, and come back to his little 
Mumsey.” 

“O, I hope so ; I sincerely hope so,” said Ethel. I 
am longing to make up to the dear boy for the harsh 
treatment he received. Ned, I do feel so thankful I 
did not bring a child into the world. Fancy having 
a son or daughter with that man’s disposition. It 
would have broken my heart. It is quite bad enough 
to have to battle with it in my step-children.” 

“ Is Maddy giving you so much trouble, then, Ethel ? ” 

‘‘The trouble is more on her own account than 
mine. She will not give up the acquaintanceship of 
the Reynolds ; and I am more than afraid that she has 
a sort of a fancy for the oldest son, Wilfred, the young 
photographer, you know.” 

“ Not that dreadful young cad ? Surely, Maddy has 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 85 

better taste than that. Why, his manners are too 
offensive, even, for his trade. I never felt more like 
kicking a man than when I accompanied you to his 
studio.” 

“ Ned, we women are such blind fools where our 
hearts are concerned, that we neither see nor hear, nor 
believe anything, or anybody, but the person for whom 
we have conceived a fancy. That is one reason that I 
long so much for Gilbert’s return. I think he might 
influence his sister ; for she is very much attached to 
him. She listens to me, but she does not heed what I 
say. If I point out to her (which I have done un- 
scrupulously) that Mr. Reynolds is not in the same 
social position as herself, she only says : ^ O, Mumsey, 
don’t talk to me of birth and all that rubbish. I had 
enough of it with papa. What good did his birth do 
him, unless it was to make him more disagreeable than 
he was- by nature. I’ve had enough of so-called gentle- 
men. Let me try one of the lower order, as a change.’ 
And I am very much afraid that she will — that it will 
end in a marriage. Of course, the Reynolds do all in 
their power to further it. Madeline, let alone the fact 
that she inherits money under the Professor’s will, and 
may possibly have more, is a better match than they 
had any right to expect for their son ; and they would 
be fools not to encourage the intimacy. But it will be 
a deplorable thing for her.” 

Why do you say that Madeline is likely to have 
more money, Ethel } Where is it to come from ? ” 

“ Have you not heard the conditions of the Profes- 
sor’s will ? ” she asked him, with a deep blush. 


86 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ No ! He left you comfortably off, I hope.” 

“ O, yes ; that is as long as I remain a widow,” 
replied Ethel, blushing still more deeply. 

“ Never ! ” exclaimed Captain Standish, starting. 
“ You don’t mean to tell me he was so mean as that. 
That you are to lose your income if you marry 
again ? ” 

“ Yes, that is it. I have two thousand a year as long 
as I remain as I am at present ; but, if I should elect to 
marry again, every penny of it goes to the children, 
unconditionally. So you see, the Professor never 
thought, apparently, that his daughter might wish to 
make an unsuitable marriage ; yet, had he been asked, 
whilst on earth, to consent to her engagement to young 
Reynolds, he would have raved like a madman.” 

“ Was Gilbert not mentioned in the will } ” 

“ O, yes. He went so suddenly, you see, that, 
luckily, he had no time to alter it. The children share 
alike. Their portion gives them each about a couple 
of hundred a year ; and mine goes to them, in equal 
parts, at my death or marriage. So they will be very 
comfortably off — that is, if I should marry again.” 

‘‘And shall you, Ethel?” asked cousin Ned, in 
rather tender tones, as he took her hand. “ Have you 
any proclivities that way, my dear ; or has that man’s 
treatment too utterly disgusted you with the holy 
state ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Ethel, looking down. “ No 
one has asked me yet. It will be time to decide when 
some one does.” 

“ Listen to me, my darling. You know that, years 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


87 


ago, I loved you. You chose to quarrel with me be- 
cause you got it into your foolish, little head that I 
had flirted with Maggie Robinson ; but it was all a 
silly mistake, believe me. However, we quarreled and 
parted ; but all through that sad voyage I was thinking 
and hoping that, as soon as I reached land again, I 
should see you and convince you that I had never been 
untrue ; and that the love-making to Miss Robinson 
existed in your brain alone. Well, after two years’ 
absence, I came back, to find you married to Professor 
Aldwyn. What I felt, I had no right to tell you then ; 
but I was nearly heart-broken. I went to sea again 
without seeing you, and we did not meet until last 
March. But all the time I was loving and longing 
for you, and you only ; and now that you are free, I 
cannot help telling you so. Is there any hope for me, 
Ethel? Can you feel for your old sweetheart, as you 
once did, when we walked through the lanes of Beere 
together, and promised to wait for each other, to our 
lives’ end ? I think you loved me then. Do you love 
me now ? ” 

The Professor expected to hear his widow make 
some remonstrance at her cousin addressing such words 
to her so soon after his lamented demise ; but he was 
wofully mistaken. What Ethel did, was to creep closer 
to her objectionable cousin Ned, till she had reached 
the sanctuary of his waistcoat, when she burrowed her 
head in there, and whispered, in a very small voice : 

“ O Ned, it has been just the same with me. I have 
been miserable ever since we parted that wretched 
night in Green Man’s lane. My heart seemed broken. 


88 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


too ; SO much so, that when the Professor proposed to 
me, and mother said it was a very good match, and 
father would be glad to get even one of us off his 
hands, I said ‘ Yes,’ because I was really too hopeless 
to care what became of me. You didn’t think I 
married him for love, Ned, surely. I never felt the 
least spark of it for him. He was kind at first, and I 
thought he would be my friend through life ; but that 
dream soon vanished.” 

“ My poor darling,” cried cousin Ned, sympathetic- 
ally ; “ you have suffered, indeed.” 

“ Yes, but it is all over now,” exclaimed Ethel, joy- 
fully, as she raised her beaming face ; “ and you 
mustn’t call me your ‘poor’ darling, ever again, Ned, 
for I am the very happiest woman in all the world.” 

“ But hold hard,” replied Captain Standish. “ Don’t 
be in such a hurry. What about the two thousand a 
year? It will vanish like a heavenly dream, if you 
have the bad taste to marry me.” 

“ Like a bad dream, you mean, Ned ; like a horrible 
nightmare that chained me to misery. Let the money 
go. Let Maddy and Gillie have it and everything else, 
so long as I have you'' 

“ But I can’t make so much as that, my Ethel,” said 
Captain Standish, somewhat ruefully ; “ at least, I am 
afraid, not for some years to come. All I can offer 
you, dear love, is a cosy berth aboard my ship, and lots 
of love when we are together, to make up for the 
occasional absences which I must spend on deck.” 

“ And will you really take me to sea with you, 
Ned ! ” cried Ethel, delightedly. “ O, that will be 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


89 


charming ! I do so love the sea, and everything con- 
nected with it ; and I shall look upon the dear ‘ Devon- 
shire ’ as my home. And then, to be always with 
you ! O, it is too much,” said the girl, crying with ex- 
citement. 

“ And you are sure you will have no regrets ? ” in- 
quired the Captain, a little anxiously. 

“Regrets for what? The money? O, you don’t 
know me ; you don’t, indeed. I shall be glad to get 
rid of it. I want to owe nothing to anybody but you. 
If you knew what my life with him was ; how I loathed 
it and him, and everything connected with my unhappy 
marriage, you would not ask me if I shall regret los- 
ing all memory of that wretched time, even at the ex- 
pense of a few pounds, more or less. Ned, darling, do 
believe me, as you did when we strolled in the Devon- 
shire lanes together : I love you, and you only ; and I 
want nothing that you cannot give me, and no one who 
is not 

“ I do believe you, my dearest,” said Captain 
Standish, as he kissed her passionately. “ And I will 
take you at your word. How soon shall we be able to 
be married ? ” 

“O, I’m afraid not for a long time,” replied Ethel, 
with crimson cheeks. “You see, it is only three 
months yet, and, I suppose, the very least we can wait 
is a year.” 

“Rubbish! Fiddlesticks !” cried cousin Ned. “Why, 
I’ve been waiting for you for four years already. 
What does a stupid conventionality signify to two 
longing hearts like ours ? What difference can it make 


90 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


to a dead man, lying in his grave, whether his widow 
remains so for a month or a year ? What do you owe 
to this man that you should consult the proprieties on 
his account ? Who would be the wiser if I married 
you to-morrow, and carried you off in the ‘ Devon- 
shire ’ next week?” 

“ O what a very unimportant person you must think 
me, to be able to leave my household in that indecor- 
ous manner. No, dear, we must not be quite so un- 
conventional as all that. I would like it, Ned, oh, so 
dearly, ” said Ethel, with a sentimental sigh ; but I 
have my people at home and the children to consider, 
and a heap of things beside. So you must be a good 
boy, and rest content with being engaged to me for a 
few months longer.” 

Well, well, I won’t be greedy,” replied the Captain. 
“ I know that you are right. This unexpected happi- 
ness, however, is more than I deserve. What sweet 
dreams I shall have of home and you, when I am away. 
And next time I come back, perhaps ” 

‘‘Yes, next time, perhaps,” echoed Ethel, with a 
beaming smile, as she softly laid her cheek on his ; “ we 
shall see what we shall see. O, how silly I am. You 
have made me wild with happiness, Ned. I hardly 
know what I am doing or saying. All the dark clouds 
of my life seem to have flown away forever.” 

“You have had your share of them, my darling,” 
replied her cousin ; “ but, please God, the worst is over. 
My poor little Ethel in the clutches of that ogre ! How 
I pitied you, though I dared not say so, when I called 
on you last March.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 9 1 

“ And how very rude he was to you. I shall never 
forget it,” said Ethel. And if you could have seen 
him, after those two old men were gone, throwing all 
the lovely things you had brought me out of window, 
and kicking in the panels of my beautiful little cabinet, 
as if he would have liked to kick me. How I cried at 
the loss of them. What a brute I thought him. And 
then the next thing I heard was that he was dead. I 
tried to be sorry, Ned, but I couldn’t. I only felt as 
if I had been chained fast in a prison and some one had 
come, as the angel did to Saint Peter, and knocked off 
my chains and set me free.” 

“ Free to love me for the rest of your life. Thank 
God for it ! ” exclaimed cousin Ned. Never mind 
about the presents, my darling. No one shall ever 
dare to treat you so again, whilst I live to defend you. 
The next voyage I make, we’ll go to Japan together, 
and you shall buy everything you like best in the 
island, yourself. Won’t that be better than my bring- 
ing them home to you ? ” 

O, lovely, exquisite ! ” acquiesced Ethel ; and she 
repeated what she had said before : “ Ned, dearest, 
darling Ned ! I am the very happiest girl in all the 
world.” 

And the Professor had to stand by and hear and see 
it all. 


92 


CHAPTER VII. 

A FACE IN THE CAMERA. 

“ My time is up,” said Captain Standish next, and 
I must go. But I shall come again this evening, if you 
will let me, Ethel.” 

“ If I will let you,” repeated the girl after him, 
softly. 

And I will bring you a ring to wear on this dear, 
little hand,” he added, raising it to his lips ; a ring 
that shall remind you of your true love far away, and 
that you have pledged yourself to him forever.” 

“ O, no, dear Ned, not a ring,” she answered ; ‘‘he 
gave me one when we were engaged, and I used to 
hate it so. The signet of my bondage. Bring me a 
little, plain gold locket, with a piece of your bonny 
hair inside — a locket that I can wear next my heart, 
night and day, till we meet again. Nothing belonging 
to the Professor has ever lain near t/ia^ yet,” added 
Ethel, with a low laugh. 

“ How ungrateful women are,” remarked the Pro- 
fessor to his guide ; “ I spent half I was worth on that 
girl when I first knew her, and hear how she speaks of 
my generosity.” 

“ Had you spoken a few kind words to her after- 
wards,” replied John Forest ; “ had you once or twice 
relinquished your own wishes in favor of hers, she would 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


93 


have treasured your gifts for the sake of it. But, money 
is valueless without love to sanctify it. She will value 
the least hair on Edward Standish’s head, more than 
she did all your money or yourself.” 

“ So it seems,” said the Professor, bitterly. 

He watched. the lovers part with a fond embrace, and 
many promises of a speedy reunion. 

“ I am so happy — so happy,” murmured Ethel, with 
feverish excitement, as she accompanied him to the 
door. 

And so am I, beloved,” were his last words, as he 
passed through it. 

But as soon as Captain Standish had gone, Mrs. 
Aldwyn’s mood seemed to change. She became grave 
and thoughtful, and sat with her hands folded on her 
lap, gazing into space. 

What have I done,” she thought (and though her 
lips uttered no words, the Professor found, to his sur- 
prise, that he could read all her thoughts, as though 
they had been spoken aloud), “ to be so blest. I have 
never been a religious woman, though brought up so. 
Something in religion, as presented to me, jarred on 
my feelings ; I have tried to do what appeared to be 
my duty, but it was done very grudgingly, and I feel 
myself to be a very unworthy individual, after all. And 
yet, God has sent me this exceeding happiness. How 
grateful to him I should be.” 

At that moment, the Professor perceived, to his 
amazement, the form of his first wife, Susan Clumber, 
standing behind Ethel. She looked just as she did 
when he met her in the spheres, but the children were 


94 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


not with her — she was alone. She was looking down 
upon Ethel with great tenderness, and as she stole her 
arm around her neck, the girl lifted her eyes to heaven 
(or where she had been told that heaven lay) and said, 
aloud : 

“ O God, I thank thee. Make me more thankful. 
Let all my future life resolve itself into a psalm of 
praise for Thine unexpected goodness to me.” 

“ Is it possible,” exclaimed the Professor, “that that 
is my wife, Susan ? Why has she come down to the 
earth sphere ? She never did so in my life-time.” 

“You speak in ignorance,” replied John Forest. 
“ She has never ceased to visit her children, since she 
was called away from them. But what eyes had you 
to see her ? What ears to hear her gentle counsels ? 
Every good influence which has been brought to bear 
upon you — every whisper from your better self — every 
doubt whether, after all, you were quite just and right 
— has been prompted by the invisible presence of 
Susan. She has watched like a sister over your second 
wife ; without her aid and solace, Ethel would hardly 
have been able to bear the trials you put upon her.” 

“ They are two very handsome women,” continued 
the Professor, as he saw the fair locks of Susan ming- 
ling with the darker tresses of Ethel. “ I wonder it 
did not strike me so before. I knew they were nice- 
looking, but now they seem beautiful to me. Why is 
it?” 

“ Because, for the first time, you find yourself in a 
condition to perceive the beauties of their souls. 
Whilst you were on earth, you were so engrossed with 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


95 


your studies, and your own selfish designs, that you 
had no time to appreciate the minds of your life com- 
panions. They are both affectionate and kindly- 
natured women — you repressed their affection, and 
cruelly disregarded their feelings in every way. Con- 
sequently you alienated them from you, and you have 
lost them both.” 

“ Will they never be mine again ? ” 

“ Never ! through all eternity,” replied his guide ; 
and you would not be happy with them, if they 
were. They see your character too plainly. They 
despise it and you. What chance of happiness would 
there be for any of you ? ” 

Am I condemned then to pass through eternity 
alone ? ” groaned the Professor. 

Until you have remedied the evils you have 
wrought, by supplanting them with good. That is the 
Almighty decree. ‘ He shall not go thence until he 
have paid the uttermost farthing.’ ” 

“ How can one undo what is done ? ” 

By doing it over again. When your son was a 
child, under your tuition, if he had brought you a sum, 
carelessly worked out, or a problem in Euclid un- 
proved, what should you have said to him ? ” 

Do it over again.” 

Exactly so ; and that is what the Almighty Spirit 
is saying to you at this moment. Rub out your faulty 
life and do it all over again. Rub out the evil — and 
fill in the void with deeds of righteousness and re- 
pentance.” 

‘‘ I do repent,” said the Professor, bitterly.” 


96 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


That is the first stage, but only the first. You will 
find, now you have left your body, that something 
more is required than the idle words, ‘ I repent and I 
believe,’ to secure your salvation. You must work it 
out for yourself, in fear and trembling. God will not 
accept a sacrifice of empty words. You must bring 
fruits in your hands to lay upon his altar.” 

“ I see plainly the miseries I have wrought by my 
behavior in the earth life,” said the Professor. 

“O no, you don’t. You deceive yourself,” replied 
John Forest. “As yet you have only seen the good 
effected by your death. You have still to learn the evil 
which your selfish life caused, and which may extend 
from generation to generation. Here comes some of 
the fruit of it, in the person of your daughter Made- 
line. Mark her manner and her appearance.” 

At this juncture the door opened, rather noisily, and 
Madeline Aldwyn entered. Even the few months that 
had elapsed since her father’s death seemed to have 
made a great change in her. She had always been a 
high-spirited girl, with something of the Professor’s 
obstinacy and selfishness in her disposition, but these 
vices had been kept under by his severity to her. She 
had been afraid of him and the quarrels his displeasure 
engendered, the while she had hated and despised him 
for the very traits she had inherited. But, now that 
he had left her free and independent, her manners had 
vastly changed. She was still affectionate to her step- 
mother, but she would neither take her advice nor 
brook her interference. She came into the drawing- 
room now, a fine, handsome girl, dressed in black, of 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


97 


course, but with no appearance of mourning in her 
features. As she entered, Susan drew a little further 
away from Ethel’s side, though she continued to 
stand by the two young women and listen to their 
conversation. 

Why does my former wife, who is the mother of 
Madeline, draw away from her own child, though she 
clings to a stranger like Ethel ? ” inquired the Pro- 
fessor. 

Because, though she loves Madeline, as being part 
of herself, the taint which you have left upon her is so 
strong as to prevent her mother getting as near to her 
as she can to Ethel, who has no blood of yours in her 
veins.” 

‘‘ That seems very hard,” said the Professor. 

“ It may appear so to you, but it is the natural effect 
of a misused existence. In this world, spirits can con- 
verse with each other, because their bodies force them 
to the contact. But in the spiritual spheres it is not 
so. There, spirit meets spirit alone, and if they stand 
on different planes they cannot communicate. You 
may have noticed that Susan is not aware of your 
presence, though you see and hear her. It is because 
she dwells upon a higher plane than yourself, and is 
actually insensible of your contiguity. She neither 
sees your spirit, nor hears your voice.” 

How was it, then, that when we met in the spheres 
she saw, recognized, and spoke to me ? ” 

Because, she had come down, on that occasion, 
from a higher sphere, in obedience to higher orders, 
that her behavior might convey some truth of your 


98 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

real position to your mind. When you reach her plane 
she will be able to communicate with you anywhere. 
But, when leaving her own spiritual sphere to benefit 
the denizens of earth, she can only see and hear those 
who dwell with her in spirit life.” 

Why, Mumsey, how bright you look,” exclaimed 
Maddy, as she flung her hat upon a chair. “ Who has 
been here during my absence?” 

“ Only cousin Ned,” replied Ethel, rather con- 
sciously. 

Only cousin Ned, you sly Mumsey,” cried Maddy, 
laughing, “ we all know what that means. ‘ Only 
cousin Ned ’ will carry you off some day, I expect, if 
I don’t look sharp after you.” 

“ Maddy, dear, don’t talk of such a thing yet. It is 
so horribly soon,” remonstrated Ethel. 

Too soon to be happy, my dear?” replied the girl, 
in a more familiar tone than she had ever assumed to- 
wards her step-mother during her father’s life-time. 

Now, don’t go in for any such faddish idea. We’ve 
had quite enough misery, you and I, to last a life-time. 
The sooner we can forget it the better. For my part, 
I intend to do as I please henceforward.” 

“ Dearest Maddy, you know I love you, and most 
earnestly wish you to be happy,” said Ethel ; “ but 
don’t be in too great a hurry. You are freed now from 
all annoyance, and as soon as you come of age you 
will have your own money, and be quite independent. 
Take a little time to look about you, dear. If this 
house is in any way unpleasant to you, tell me, and we 
will go somewhere else — abroad, if you fancy it — only 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


99 


take time to think before you settle your final 
destiny. You know what I mean, dear. I am so afraid 
that young Mr. Reynolds will draw you into an engage- 
ment, or something of the sort, and that you will bind 
yourself to marry him before you have seen anything 
of the world, or met other men whom you might, 
perhaps, like better.” 

‘‘Now, Mumsey, I thought that was a forbidden 
subject. You’re a darling thing ; but you’re only my 
step-mother, you know, and absurdly young for that. 
I confess I like Will Reynolds. He’s an awfully jolly 
fellow ; but I’ve made no promises as yet, so don’t 
frighten yourself.” 

“ Have you been there this morning, Maddy ? ” 

“Yes ; but only to the studio ; so don’t make a fuss 
about it. But such a wonderful thing has happened. 
I cannot understand it at all.” 

“ What is it, dear ? ” 

“Well, Will proposed to take me yesterday morn- 
ing ; but, when I arrived at the studio, I found Rosa 
Burns there before me ; and she was most anxious to 
be done, as it was for a birthday present for her 
mother, next week. So Will took us both, separately 
first ; and then, as we were such friends, he said he 
would take us together. As he took the negative 
from the camera, I saw him look at it very curiously, 
and then make a motion as though he would rub out 
the impression again. I asked him what he had got 
there, and he said the plate must have been dirty, for 
it seemed all smudged. He got another, and put it in, 
with the same result. So, then, he said it was the 


100 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


funniest thing he had ever seen, and, with our permis- 
sion, he would develop the plates. This morning he 
asked me to go round and see the result, and it is the 
most extraordinary thing you ever heard, Mumsey ; 
but, on the photographs he took of me and Rosa, 
there appear two other figures, standing behind us.” 

O, Maddy, you are laughing at me. It is impos- 
sible.” 

‘‘ I should have said the same, if I had not seen it. 
Wilfred gave me one of each of them to bring home. He 
said that you might be able to solve the mystery. You 
must understand, Mumsey, that we were quite alone 
with him, Rosa and I, in his studio — not even an assist- 
ant near. Besides, both the figures that have come 
out are those of women. Here they are,” said Maddy, 
producing them from her bag. 

“ Mr. Reynolds must have been playing a trick on 
you, just to see your consternation,” said Ethel. How 
could any forms but yours have appeared on the 
plates, unless they were there before he placed them 
in the camera ? ” 

“I can’t answer that question,” replied the girl; 
“ but I know that Will was quite as astonished as we 
were. He says he never heard of such a thing in his 
life before. There they are,” she continued, as she 
placed the negatives in her step-mother’s lap. “ The 
old woman with her hands on Rosa’s shoulders, is so 
like old Mrs. Burns, her grandmother, who died last 
year, that I could almost swear it is she, or taken from 
one of her photographs. But who is this bending 
over me.^ I cannot recognize it at all. It seems .to be 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


lOI 


a tall, slight woman, with long, loose-flowing hair. 
Whatever can it all mean, Mumsey? It isn’t canny. 
It half frightens me.” 

Ethel gazed at the picture for a few seconds in 
silence ; then she suddenly turned pale. 

What is it ? ” exclaimed Madeline. “ Do you 
know ? ” 

“Know, my dear; how should I know? It is as 
mysterious to me as to you. But there is a strange 
familiarity in this figure to me. I suppose it can 
only be my fancy. But, do you remember your mother, 
Maddy?” 

“Very indistinctly, dear. You know, I was only 
eight years old when she died, and father never spoke 
to Gilbert and me of her, or kept her likeness about, or 
did anything to recall her to our minds. I can just 
remember that she was very tall and graceful in 
figure, and her face was generally sad. Poor mother ! 
I daresay she had cause enough. But why do you 
ask ? ” 

“ Because this form — O, it must be only my fancy — 
seems to remind me of some photographs I once saw 
in a drawer of your father’s writing-table in the library. 
Have you never seen them, Maddy?” 

“ Never; you know how disagreeable he was if any 
one invaded his precincts ; and, goodness knows, there 
was no inducement to do so ; and, since his death, the 
library has had such unpleasant memories for me, that 
I never go near it. It recalls him and his charming 
demeanor too vividly.” 

“ L have felt much the same ; but I should really 


102 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


like to have a look at those photographs again. Besides, 
they should, naturally, be in your hands now, since no 
one can be nearer to your dear mother than yourself 
and Gillie.” 

Ah, dear, dear Gillie ! ” sighed Madeline. “ Mumsey, 
if 1 ever felt inclined to forgive my father for all his 
beastly conduct to us (which I don’t), the thought of 
my dear brother would prevent me. I wonder if we 
shall ever see him again.” 

“Yes, yes, my dear; we shall. Don’t be afraid of 
that. Cousin Ned has been talking to me about it this 
morning, and he feels convinced that, as soon as dear 
Gillie hears of his father’s death (as sooner or later he 
must do), he will come home again. But come with 
me to the library. I don’t believe I should have the 
nerve to go by myself. The old feeling is so strong 
upon me still, that I should expect to see the Professor 
peeping in upon me whilst I was rifling his drawers, 
and demanding, in that awful voice of his, why I was 
tampering with his private property.” 

“Thank goodness ; he can never ‘pop ’ in upon any 
one of us again,” cried his daughter. “ But I will go 
and protect you, Mumsey, all the same.” 

As the ladies left the room, the Professor saw Susan 
glide after them, and looked inquiringly at John 
Forest. 

“ Yes ; you can follow them,” was the voiceless reply. 

“ I am more curious to see this photograph than I 
can say,” exclaimed Ethel, as they neared the library 
door, “ and I wonder I have not thought of handing it 
over to you before.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


103 


don’t,” replied Madeline. “The wonder would 
be if any one of us had not avoided everything we 
could that was likely to remind us of the ‘ dear de- 
parted.’ ” 

“ But I have always felt an inexplicable sympathy 
and affection for the memory of your dear mother,” 
said Ethel. 

“ A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,” laughed 
the girl. 

“ But you must love her memory, too, dear Maddy.” 

“Yes; in a measure. She must have been a very 
unhappy woman, and I pity her. But why did she 
ever marry such a man as my father? She did us a 
worse turn than she did herself ; for poor Gilbert and 
I have the misfortune to have his blood in our veins ; 
whilst in that, she, of course, came off scot-free. But, 
whatever follies she committed, she must have expur- 
gated them all. To live for ten years with the Pro- 
fessor must have been sufficient to atone for any 
amount of error.” 

“ Do you hear how your children think and speak of 
you?” asked John Forest. “Do you comprehend 
that this is but the beginning of evil, and the opinion 
Madeline has conceived from your example of man 
and his capability of wrong-doing will follow her 
throughout her life ?” 

“You need not remind me; I comprehend it all,” 
groaned the Professor. 

The young women had reached the writing-table by 
this time and commenced to open the drawers. Most of 
them were filled with piles of paid bills, notes for the 


104 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


Professor’s work, letters from his scientific corres- 
pondents, and manuscripts which he had left unfinished 
behind him. At last, shoved away at the back of one 
of the drawers, Ethel came upon what she sought — a 
packet of small, old-fashioned photographs, taken 
before cabinets were thought of, and in which the Pro- 
fessor’s first wife figured in rococo dresses, with inflated 
skirts. 

“ What guys,” cried Madeline, irreverently, as they 
came to view. ‘‘ Can this really be intended for my 
mother? The faint recollection I have of her doesn’t 
look a bit like this to me ; but, then, she was ill, and 
generally lying on the sofa for some time before she 
died.” 

But, Maddy, don’t you see the resemblance ? ” cried 
Ethel, excitedly, as she compared the old photographs 
with the negative impressions the girl had brought 
home. It may be my fancy ; but I cannot help 
seeing it. And yet — and yet — how can it he 

There certainly is a sort of resemblance,” acquiesced 
Madeline ; but, Mumsey, as you say, how can it be ? 

could poor mamma be photographed on the plate 
with me, when she has been dead for ten years ? It is 
ridiculous. But, then, who is this lady who appears 
standing by my side, and where did she come from ? 
She certainly was not in the studio. It is perfectly 
maddening to think of.” 

Susan was standing now close behind Ethel, and, 
apparently, every now and then, stooping and whisper- 
ing in her ear. At such moments, Mrs. Aldwyn ap- 
peared to become very thoughtful and dreamy.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 105 

Maddy,” she said, presently, there is certainly 
something very wonderful and mysterious in this 
business, and which is, at present, perfectly inexpli- 
cable to me. But do not let us decide too hastily. A 
thought has come into my head of some one who may 
be able to help us to an explanation of it. Do you 
remember my speaking to you once, long ago, of a friend 
of mine, Mrs. Blewitt, whom I wished to visit, and was 
much disappointed because your papa put his veto on 
it?” 

As he did on every innocent pleasure you desired,” 
replied the girl. 

“Well, darling, we need ask no one’s permission 
now, at all events. If you will come back to the draw- 
ing-room with me, I will tell you who Mrs. Blewitt is, 
and why the Professor made objections to our ac- 
quaintance. Perhaps he was right in acting according 
to his lights ” 

“ Which were remarkably small ones,” interposed 
Maddy. 

“ But we are free agents now, and can judge for our- 
selves. Bring your dear mother’s likenesses with you, 
as well as Mr. Reynolds’ negatives, and I will tell you 
the strange thought that has come into my head. Do 
you remember how angry papa was because he over- 
heard me telling you and Gilbert that spirits were or- 
dained of God to watch over and guide us during our 
journey through this world ? ” 

“Yes; I remember it perfectly, and how disap- 
pointed we were because you were not allowed to tell 
us any more. But don’t, for goodness’ sake, Mumsey, 


io6 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


tell me that the ‘ dear departed,’ clothed in a sheet, 
with wings on his back, is to be appointed my guardian 
angel, because I won’t have it. I’ve had more than 
enough of him and his guardianship already ; and, if I 
thought he was going to return to this world, I should 
get a dose of strychnia, and despatch myself to the 
next. The disappointment would turn my brain.” 

“ I am going to tell you nothing of the sort, you 
silly girl,” replied Ethel, who could not help laughing 
at the idea, nevertheless ; “ but let us sit down for a 
cosy chat, and I will try and explain to you what I 
mean’.’ 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE MEDIUM. 

As they re-entered the drawing-room, Ethel sat down 
on the sofa, and Madeline placed herself on a footstool 
at her feet. 

Now for Mrs. Blewitt,” said the girl. 

She was a servant of my mother’s, down at Beere, 
for many years, and only left us to marry James 
Blewitt,” answered Ethel. She was always rather a 
strange girl — uncanny, mother used to call her. She 
could tell the cards in the most wonderful manner, and 
everything she foretold through them came true, until 
the villagers used to ask her to lay them on every 
occasion, and mother was obliged to forbid her doing 
so, it became such a nuisance. She had wonderful 
eyes, too, quite different from those of other people, 
and was able to foretell if invalids would live or die, 
and whether the harvest would fail or be fruitful, and 
all sorts of curious things. I was very young when she 
lived with us, and they kept the knowledge from me, 
but I heard the stories afterwards from others. Mother 
told me, only the other day, that, when I married your 
papa, Emily (that was her name) wrote and told her 
that I should be a widow in two years, though how she 
knew I cannot possibly tell.” 

Why didn’t your mother tell you of it at the 


io8 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


time ? ” said Maddy. “ It would have been such a 
relief.” 

Hush, Maddy. Well, Emily left us, as I said, to 
marry James Blewitt, Captain Grandison’s groom, and 
they came to London to set up a public house. After 
awhile, however, they failed, and James had to take 
another situation, and then I heard, to my surprise, 
that Emily was laying the cards for people in town, 
and making quite a lot of money by it.” 

“ Do people pay for that sort of thing ? But what 
is the good } ” demanded Maddy. 

“ I don’t know, my dear. I am only telling you 
what I heard. I wanted to go and see Emily, but 
your father knew her occupation, and he forbade me 
doing so, so I was obliged to give up the idea. But it 
has struck me that she is the very person to explain 
this mystery to us, if anybody can, and, if you like, we 
will go and see her this afternoon. I have her address 
in my desk. I have always kept it in case the Pro- 
fessor should have taken it into his head to leave us 
alone for a space, and then I should have paid her a 
visit.” 

This is nice,” thought the Professor. “ My own 
wife plotting to deceive me during my absence. Can 
women ever be trusted to be true and faithful ? ” 

Certainly, if you are true to them and to yourself,” 
replied his guide ; “ but if you treat them with suspicion, 
when there is no necessity for it, you will find they are 
quite clever enough to outwit you.” 

But, Mumsey,” said Madeline ; ‘‘ how can this 
woman know anything more than ourselves about this 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


09 


photograph ? She never saw or heard of my 
mother. How can she explain what is really inex- 
plicable ? ” 

“ I cannot tell you, Maddy, but I have heard some 
wonderful accounts of her. She is what is called a 
clairvoyant, or one who has the gift of second sight. 
You have heard spiritualism mentioned, haven’t you ? ” 

“ O, yes, but that is all rubbish,” exclaimed the girl, 
with the audacity of ignorance. How can it be any- 
thing else ? No one, with any sense, could really be- 
lieve that dead people come back to this world again. 
It is too silly. Besides, I don’t believe when we die 
that anything of us remains. We are buried, and there 
is an end of us. Papa always said this life ended 
everything ; and, with all his eccentricities and un- 
pleasantnesses, he was a clever man — -you will not 
deny that.” 

“ I know he was, Maddy ; but even clever men have 
been very much mistaken on this point, sometimes. I 
consider one of the worst things your father ever did, 
was talking so openly, before his children, of his belief 
in annihilation. If you believe that, you must disbe- 
lieve in God and the Bible. But I feel sure it is not 
true.” 

“ I don’t know why you do not like the idea, 
Mumsey. I’m sure we have more than enough of this 
life, without wanting another. Why, when I die, if I 
enter another world, I may meet papa there. On that 
score alone, I prefer to disbelieve in the chance of it. 
If it is to be, I would rather not know it till it comes.” 

‘‘Your own child would rather give up the hope of 


I lO 


THE DEAD MAN S MESSAGE. 


another life than run the risk of meeting you again. 
Do you make a note of that.^ ” asked John Forest of 
the Professor. But all the answer he received was 
conveyed by a groan. 

“Never mind, darling,’’ was Ethel’s response. “Will 
you come with me and see my old friend Emily, or not ? ” 

“ O, yes, I shall like to go. It will be fun, I expect. 
But you will never make me believe in spirits, Mumsey, 
so give up all hope of it.” 

“ I don’t believe in them myself, my dear. I know 
nothing about them, but I should like to show these 
two photographs to Emily, and hear what she thinks 
about them.” 

Accordingly, as soon as they had finished their 
luncheon, the two young women entered their carriage 
and ordered it driven to a small row of houses in 
Bermondsey. 

Mrs. Blewitt, who was a very ordinary-looking woman, 
was rather flustered at first, by the appearance of a 
grand carriage, with two horses, standing at her door, 
but as soon as she found the occupants were her dear 
“ Miss Ethel ” and her daughter, she was all excite- 
ment and delight at the honor of receiving them. 

“ O, my dear Miss Ethel — Mrs. Aldwyn — I beg your 
pardon,” she cried. “ Now, do send your horses away 
for a bit, and stay and have a cup of tea with me. You 
won’t think it a liberty, my dear. I’m sure ; not if you 
are the same dear young lady as I knew down at Beere, 
for I’ve hungered and thirsted for a sight of you, ever 
since you came up to London, and sadly disappointed 
that I never saw you.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


Ill 


Well, it has not been entirely my fault, Emily, that I 
have not been before, but I have not forgotten you all 
the same. Maddy, dear, tell James to have the horses 
put up for a couple of hours, and call here again for us 
at six o’clock. That will give us time for a nice, long 
chat.” 

And so you’re a widow, my dear,” commenced Mrs. 
Blewitt, as soon as they had settled down together, “ I 
ought to have condoled with you before this.” 

“ How did you hear of it, Emily ? Has mother 
written to you, or did you read it in the papers ? ” 

^‘Neither the one nor the other. Miss Ethel. Your 
dear mamma has too much to do with her large family 
to have time to write to me, and, as for papers, I don’t 
see one in a blue moon. No, it was through the cards 
I saw it — though there’s been some one as belongs to 
you, or wants to get speech of you, hanging about me 
for a long time past.” 

“ Some one hanging about you, Emily. What do 
you mean ? ” 

A spirit, my dear,” replied Mrs. Blewitt, readily. 
I don’t think she’s of your blood, but I know she 
wants to speak to you. She’s worritted me for a long 
time past, and it’s no good my telling her to go away, 
for she won't, and that’s just the truth.” 

^^You don’t really believe, Emily, that spirits can 
come back to earth and talk to mortals, do you ?” said 
Ethel, smiling. 

“ Don’t believe it, my dear ? ” replied the woman. 
Well, I should be a greater fool than I take myself 
for if I didn’t believe it. How can I help believing it. 


II2 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


when they’re about and around me day and night? 
Have you never heard,” she continued, in a lower voice, 
“ how I makes my living now-a-days ? ” 

I have heard that you are, or fancy yourself to be, 
what people call a medium,” replied Mrs. Aldwyn ; 
“ but as I know nothing about it, I have not known 
what to believe.” 

“ Ah, it’s a pity you don’t know more about it. Miss 
Ethel, and, perhaps, I may have the happiness of 
teaching you what you don’t know. Don’t you believe 
any of them parsons, or other fellers, as think them- 
selves mighty clever, and tell you there’s nothing in it. 
For there’s everything in it. There’s life and health 
and happiness in it, and in nothing else. If you knew 
what I know (though I’m only a poor, ignorant woman), 
and felt as I feel, you wouldn’t fear death no more than 
you do your bed.” 

“ Tell us about it, Emily,” said Ethel, drawing closer 
to her. “ Both my step-daughter and I are interested 
in the subject, and would like to hear all you have to 
say.” 

All I have to say,” repeated Mrs. Blewitt ; “why, 
that would take more time than you would give to it, 
Miss Ethel. But it’s Bible truth, that the spirits of 
the dead can return. They’re about me day and 
night.” 

“ It’s very ‘creepy’ to think of,” said Mrs. Aldwyn, 
with a shudder ; “ don’t they frighten you awfully, 
Emily? I think I should die if I were to see one.” 

“ O, no, my dear, you wouldn’t. You’d come to look 
upon them as your best friends — as, indeed, they are.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. II3 

“ But how did you find out first that you were a 
medium, Emily? You were not one down at Beere.” 

“ O, yes, Miss Ethel, I must have been, but I was 
too ignorant to perceive it. But when I settled in 
London, I got mixed up with a family of spiritualists 
and used to ‘ sit ’ with them ; and one evening, all of a 
sudden, I was controlled, and it has continued ever 
since.” 

“What do you mean by ‘controlled,’ Emily?” 

“ I lost my consciousness, and some one else took 
possession of my body and spoke through my mouth. 
Miss Ethel. But it wasn’t that fact, alone ; it was 
that I spoke of things and people that I had never 
heard of or seen, but which those present knew to be 
truths. My principal control now. Doctor Abernethy, 
will write prescriptions, in Latin, for the sick, and cure 
them in a most marvelous manner, whilst I am fast 
asleep. And you know, Miss Ethel, that if I wasn’t, 
I never could write Latin, nor show any knowledge of 
medicine — could I, now ? ” 

“ No, it all seems very wonderful. And you really 
make money by it ? ” 

“ Well, we mustn’t talk too loud of that,” replied 
Emily, “ for whilst the law is against it, I am apt to 
get into trouble if it should get about. But I have a 
large connection now, and, of course, the ladies and 
gentlemen who come here to consult my guides, leave 
a little recognition of my services behind them. And 
since we failed. I’m sure I don’t know what James and 
me would have done without it, sometimes.” 

“ Well, you have interested me very much, Emily, 


1 14 the dead man’s message. 

and I came here this afternoon to see if you could ex- 
plain away a little mystery for us.” 

Ethel then produced the photographs of the Pro- 
fessor’s first wife, with the negatives taken by Mr. 
Reynolds, and told her the story of them. Emily 
looked at the pictures for some time in silence ; then 
she exclaimed, suddenly : 

“ I know who the lady is. It is the same as has 
worritted me for so long. Wait a bit and I’ll give you 
her name, she’s telling it to me now ; Su — Susan — yes, 
that’s it, but it’s the young lady she wants. Miss Ethel, 
not you. Well, this is the curiousest thing as I’ve ever 
seen. This is her spirit photograph. Aye, you may 
stare, ladies, but it’s a commoner thing than you think 
of. I’ve been taken with them several times myself. 
By the way. Miss Ethel, do you mind my old father who 
used to work for Captain Grandison — Isaac Bond — 
many a ride he’s given you before him when he was 
taking his horses down to water.” 

“ Of course I remember him, Emily. Didn’t I knit 
him a scarlet woolen comforter, the first piece of knit- 
ting I ever did, and took it to him when he was lying 
in bed with the rheumatism ? ” 

“ Of course you did, and I’m glad of it, for you will 
have no difficulty in recognizing his features. There, 
Miss, what do you think of that,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Blewitt, as she produced a photograph of herself and 
her husband, sitting lovingly on a sofa together, whilst 
behind them stood the figure of an old laborer, in a 
smock frock. 

“ O, Emily, this is very, very wonderful ; how well I 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. II5 

remember your old father’s shock of gray hair, and the 
way he used to lean with both hands on his thick staff. 
But do you mean to tell me he did not stand for this 
picture with Blewitt and you ? ” 

“ O, father stood for it, sure enough. Miss Ethel ; but 
he’s been passed over for five years and more, and that 
photo was only taken last December. I sent one home 
to mother and she cried with joy, for she hadn’t a 
single likeness to remind her of the old man. It made 
a spiritualist of mother at once, that picture did, 
though she had been dead set against it before, but 
there was no going against her own eyes.” 

“ And you really think — ” said Mrs. Aldwyn, still 
fingering the likenesses of Susan — “that — that — this 
portrait was — ” 

She halted, for she didn’t know what to say. The 
astonishment was too great to permit her utterance. 

“I don’t think, Miss Ethel, I’m sure that the lady, 
who’s been round about me for so long, is the same 
that is in that photograph ; and if so be, as you say, 
she’s passed over to the spirit world, why, then, that’s 
a spirit photograph, and nothing else. May I be so 
bold as to ask who took it ? ” 

“A young photographer named Reynolds,” an- 
swered Ethel. “He was as astonished as we were at 
what had occurred, and could give no explanation pf 
it.” 

“ Well, he must be a powerful medium, whoever he 
is, and may make his fortune if he chooses. No one 
could produce that photograph who wasn’t a first-class 
medium.” 


Il6 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

Do you mean,” asked Maddy, speaking for the first 
time, “ that he will have spirits and ghosts and those 
sorts of things always about him ? Because he is not 
a spiritualist. He doesn’t believe in it at all.” 

“ That won’t signify. Miss, if so be as he has the gift. 
The spirits will find him out, sure enough. He won’t 
be able to keep out of it. If they want his work, he’ll 
have to give it them.” 

Maddy drew nearer to Ethel, and got hold of her hand. 

“ If that’s the case, he won’t see much more of me,” 
she whispered, with a scared face. Why, he might 
take it in his head to come back some day and be 
photographed. The risk is too great. I shall never sit 
to Will Reynolds again.” 

“You foolish girl,” said Ethel, “you are talking of a 
matter of which you know positively nothing.” 

“ And believe less,” said Madeline. 

“ Then why make such irrelevant remarks ? For my 
own part, I think I should dearly like to inquire further 
into it, if Emily, here, can promise me that I shall not 
be frightened.” 

“ My dear lady, there is nothing to be frightened at. 
My other control, ‘ Margaret,’ is such a pure, gentle 
spirit, I am sure you will love her. Well, if you fancy 
it, suppose you let me give you and the young lady 
a cup of tea, and then we will go up into my private 
room and I will have the pleasure of giving you a 
seance.” 

“ O, Emily, you are good,” exclaimed Ethel, “ I 
should like it above all things. Wouldn’t you, 
Maddy ? ” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 11/ 

I don’t know,” replied that young lady. If Mrs. 
Blewitt will promise not to bring back papa ” 

My dear Miss Aldwyn, I have not the power to 
bring back any one, but should there be anybody you 
particularly do not wish to speak to, I feel sure your 
own guardian spirit will keep him away.” 

Mrs. Blewitt then rose to make her preparations for 
tea, and Maddy cuddled up to her step-mother. 

Do you know, Mumsey, I feel very much inclined 
to run away. It makes me half afraid. I feel as if 
something terrible were going to happen. Don’t 
you ? ” 

“ On the contrary, I am only very curious, Maddy. 
But I must say, Emily’s evident belief in spiritualism 
has made me think there must be something in it. She 
was always such a simple, straightforward, honest 
woman. My mother used to say she was too honest. 
She put away every scrap of paper, or needleful of 
thread, she found about the house. And surely she 
could never make money by it, if it were all humbug. 
People would find her out and expose her. I am most 
anxious to see her under control.” 

“ What will she do ? Will she have fits, or things ” 
asked Maddy. 

“ I hope not, dear,” said Ethel ; and, as Mrs. Blewitt 
returned with the tea-tray, she told her what Maddy 
had said. 

“ I shall do nothing to frighten you, my dear young 
lady,” she replied ; “ but, drink your tea first, and then 
you will say I have kept my word. And how long is 
it since you went down to Beere, Miss Ethel ? And how 


Il8 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

is your dear mamma ? And is it long since you heard 
from home ? ” 

“No, indeed, Emily; mother is a capital corres- 
pondent, and writes to me regularly once a week. And 
Miss Gussie was married last summer, and has such a 
sweet, little baby. And my sister, Carrie, is engaged, 
too — to a young clergyman — and father and mother 
are so pleased about it. I was down at Beere, this 
spring, for a whole month. It was delightful to see 
the old place again, and all my brothers and sisters. 
Your last baby. Master Bobby, has grown such a fine 
fellow, six years old last birthday, and rides his pony 
like a little man. Mother spoils him, of course ; but 
then he is the baby, you see, and, I suppose, will always 
remain so, in her eyes.” 

“ And have you no baby of your own. Miss Ethel ? ” 
asked Mrs. Blewitt. 

“ No ; thank God,” was on the tip of Ethel’s tongue ; 
but she changed the words in time to “ No, Emily, and 
I’m not sorry for it. I never cared much for children, 
you know, and I have two big ones — this young lady 
here, and my step-son, who is at sea. But, if you are 
ready, I think we had better get our little business 
over ; for I ordered the carriage to call for us at six, 
and the time must be getting on.” 

“ Very good, my dear. If you will accompany me 
to my own room, we will sit at once.” 

Mrs. Blewitt lit a candle as she spoke, and preceded 
the ladies up-stairs. Maddy hung back, and would not 
have had the courage to go at all, had not Ethel 
grasped her hand firmly and drawn her after her. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 1 19 

Emily’s sitting-room was a tiny apartment, contain- 
ing only a small table and three or four chairs ; but 
she accounted for the paucity of furniture by saying 
that, as a rule, she never sat for more than one person 
at a time. 

“You see. Miss Ethel, ‘Margaret’ cannot speak as 
freely as she likes if she sees more than one sitter ; but, 
with you and Miss Aldwyn, it is, of course, different. 
You can have no secrets from each other ; but, with 
most people, it is quite another thing. O, I have had 
the awkwardest things said as ever you heard on — 
wives’ secrets coming out before their husbands, and 
vice versa, as Master Richard used to say at home. I 
don’t know anything about them, of course, being fast 
asleep ; but I’ve found ladies and gentlemen in fine 
rages when I waked up. So, now, I make it a rule to 
see only one at a time ; and they are often thankful 
for it afterwards, and come and tell me so. But now 
we will be quiet for a few minutes, if you please, and 
see if any of our friends are about.” 

Saying which, Mrs. Blewitt closed her eyes, and, in 
another moment, her head fell forward on her bosom, 
and she was asleep. 

But the sleep was evidently not a natural one. She 
sat quiet for a little while, and then began to moan 
and gasp, as if speaking were a terrible effort to her. 
Her actions frightened Maddy, who was with diffi- 
culty prevented from running out of the room. 

“No, Maddy, now we are here, do be sensible,” 
urged Ethel. “You heard Emily say that nothing 
would harm us, so let us sit it out to the end. How 


120 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


silly we should look if we ran away and left poor 
Emily, after all her kindness to us, to wake up and find 
herself alone. Hark ! she is going to speak.” 

Mrs. Blewitt sat bolt upright in her chair, and re- 
garded the two nervous women with an amused air. 

“ Do I alarm you ? ” she asked. 

Ethel did not know what to answer, or who to ad- 
dress. Was this Emily who spoke to her, or a stranger ? 
So she said, timidly : 

“ Not precisely ; but we don’t know who you are. 
Are you Emily?” 

O, no ; the medium has gone far away, and will not 
return till we have done with her. I am * Margaret,’ 
of whom you heard her speak.” 

** But what is your other name ? There are so many 
Margarets in the world,” said Ethel. 

My other name would carry no significance with 
it for you. I was a very humble body whilst on this 
earth, but all my friends here call me ‘ Margaret.’ 
You are trembling. You are frightened. Is it because 
I speak to you ? ” 

^‘No ; but it is all so strange to us. We are not ac- 
customed to it. We have been taught that spirits can- 
not communicate with mortals — that it is folly to think 
so — and, by some, that there is no spirit at all, but 
that when the body dies all dies with it.” 

“ They must have been very ignorant and silly people 
who tried to make you believe that. Why, the spirit 
lives for ever and ever. You must believe it when I 
tell you, because I am a spirit who left this earth more 
than two hundred years ago.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ Is that possible ? But why do you come back 
then } Why don’t you stay in heaven, or wherever 
you may be at present ? ” 

“ I come back to try and do good to my fellow 
mortals, as I am attempting to-night with you. You 
both need spirit guidance very much, especially this 
young lady. It was no accident that brought her here 
to-night. A spirit who loves her and watches over her 
was the means of her coming. She tried to speak to 
her just now, but could not manage it ; so she sent me 
instead, but she will try again later on.” 

“ Who is this spirit who cares for me ? ” demanded 
Madeline, eagerly. 

“ Be patient, and she will tell you, herself. She 
would not like me to forestall her. She has been try- 
ing for so long to communicate with you. But you 
need not fear her. She loves you very dearly, and has 
done so from your birth.” 

Then she turned to Ethel, and said, with an amused air : 

And so you have pledged yourself to marry again ? 
Your late experience has not frightened you altogether 
from entering the holy state.” 

Madeline looked surprised, and whispered, Mum- 
sey, is that true ?” and Ethel colored to her eyes, and 
asked Margaret how she came to know it. 

‘‘Why, I can read it in your mind. It was only this 
morning that it occurred. Am I not right? But I 
congratulate you. You have made a wise and good 
choice this time, and chosen a man who will make you 
very happy. I see you in the future, with his children 
round you, blessing God, not only for the gift of him 


122 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


and his love, but also for the trials which you passed 
through before you became his wife. The remem- 
brance of them will make your future all the happier 
from the contrast.” 

“ Cousin Ned, Mumsey, of course ? ” whispered Maddy. 

“ O, my dear child, yes ; but, however she came to 
find it out, I cannot imagine. It is more than wonder- 
ful. It is magical.” 

“ O, no,” said the spirit; “don’t let any such false 
conceptions enter your head. There is nothing magi- 
cal about me. I am only a woman, like yourself. 
But, when you pass over to the spiritual spheres, and 
leave the evil influences of earth behind you — the 
deceit and fraud, the lying and slander, the hypocrisy 
and ill-nature — you will find all the senses which the 
Creator intended you, from the beginning, to enjoy in 
your life, but which have been deadened and over- 
clouded by sin and disease, wonderfully strengthened 
and developed, so that you will be able to read each 
other’s minds, and anticipate what is going to happen 
to you. This is not magic ; it is Spiritualism.” 

“ Have you anything to tell me ? ” asked Maddy, who 
was beginning to take a great interest in the proceed- 
ings. “ Can you see anything in the future for me ? ” 

“Yes, indeed ; but not until you have passed through 
a hard trial. You are on the brink of a great danger, 
that threatens to overshadow your whole life. Your 
senses are fascinated, in some way, by a friend (if I can 
call him such) who courts you only for the advantages 
he may gain through you. He has a pleasant manner, 
though rather a rough and unpolished one ; and, if 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


23 


you link your fate with his, he will make you very 
unhappy, and gradually alienate you from all your 
present friends. If you search your heart honestly, 
you will find that you do not really care for this per- 
son. At times, all his deficiencies burst upon your 
mind, and make you disgusted with him and yourself ; 
but the old glamour returns when you meet again. This 
is not love ; it is animal magnetism, a force of which 
the inhabitants of earth know far too little, or they 
would not mistake it for a higher feeling. Shall I tell 
you how you may always recognize if the sentiment 
you have conceived for one of the opposite sex is love, 
or not ? ” 

‘‘Yes, do,” cried Maddy. “It may be useful.” 

“If, when you feel that a man has so high a notion 
of honor, and so nice a balance of equity, and so great 
a horror of all that is low and mean and false, that, 
strive as you may, you will never be able to reach his 
standard of right ; when, joined to this belief, you feel 
as if you could not live except under his guidance and 
mastery, then you may say to yourself that you love 
him as a woman should love a man, and trust your 
future fearlessly to his care.” 

“ O, but where are such men to be found ?” said the 
girl. “ They don’t live in the world nowadays.” 

“ I think some do,” said Ethel, softly. “ I think 
Ned is just one of those men. Am I not right, Mar- 
garet ? ” 

But Margaret seemed to have flown away. Mrs. 
Blewitt was reclining in her chair, with her eyes fast 
closed and her natural expression on her face. 


124 


CHAPTER IX. 

SUSAN SPEAKS TO MADELINE, 

“ She has fallen asleep again. Do you think any 
one else will come ? ” demanded Madeline of her step- 
mother. 

“ I do not know ; but we had better keep quiet and 
see what happens. You are not frightened any longer, 
dear, are you ? ” 

No, not at all ; but so marvelously interested. Do 
you know, I feel already that I shall never rest till I 
have solved this mystery to the bottom. I must prove 
if it is false, or true. If true, how dare people say it is 
wrong?’’ 

How dare they, indeed ?” replied Mrs. Blewitt, as 
she sat up again in her chair. “ But they will have to 
answer for it by and by. Many a poor wretch is tread- 
ing the paths of purgatory now, for having led his 
brethren astray in this particular.” 

Then she held out her arms to Madeline, and mur- 
mured : My child ; my dear child.” 

“ O, Mumsey,” cried the girl, half frightened ; “who 
is it ? ” 

“ Ask her, dear,” cried Ethel, gently. 

“ Don’t you know me ? ” said the spirit. “ Is not my 
voice an echo of one you listened to long ago ? 
Madeline, my daughter ! I am your mother. ” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


125 


The girl did not know what to do. If this really were 
her mother — if she had been sure of it — she would have 
flown into her arms ; but it was all so strange — they 
were Mrs. Blewitt’s arms — and she held back uncer- 
tainly. 

“ O, I remember you, and I love you,” she ex- 
claimed ; “ at least, I love my mother’s memory ; but 
how am I to know that you are she ? Give me some 
proof. Tell me something that no one can know but 
our two selves — that Mrs. Blewitt is not aware of.” 

“ It is only natural that you should require some 
proof. But it is so long since we parted, and I have 
not been able to get near you till lately. But I have 
heard you 'mention the unhappy man you call your 
father. Madeline, you must not speak of him as you 
do. If you knew the torments he is undergoing, the 
hell in which he lives ; not the practical hell you have 
been taught to believe in, but one far worse, a hell of 
unfulfilled desires and racking remorse, ‘ where the 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,’ you 
would pray, night and day, that his misery might be 
abated, and that you, who inherit much of his tempera- 
ment, may escape so terrible a fate.” 

Is papa so very unhappy, then ? ” inquired Madeline, 
in an awed voice. 

“ No words of mine could depict the agony of mind 
he is suffering at the present moment — an agony he 
has brought completely on himself. He might have 
made life bright and happy for himself and all around 
him ; but he chose to indulge his own selfish disposi- 
tion, and so he has to expiate it to the last item But 


126 


HE DEAD man’s MESSAGE. 


it is not for his daughter to execrate his memory. He 
sinned, doubtless sinned heavily, for the greatest sins 
we can commit in this world are those which injure 
our fellow creatures ; but he is gone — he can never hurt 
you more. Be merciful, then, as you hope for'' mercy, 
or you may bring a like punishment on your own 
head.” 

“ Mother — if you are my mother — where did you 
ever hear me speak against papa ? ” said Madeline. 

“ I have heard you many times, both before his 
death and since, but one instance will suffice to prove 
that what I say is true. Who was it who, on the day 
which preceded his sudden death, made a profound 
curtsy behind his back, as soon as he had quitted the 
luncheon room, and said : ‘ O, you nice, dear, careful 
father! You ought to have a statue erected to you, 
you ought. Why, you haven’t as much feeling for 
your own children as a cat has for her kittens. If I 
thought I could ever behave like that to mine, I would 
go and hang myself before I had any ’ ? ” 

By this time Madeline had hidden her face in Ethel’s 
lap. 

“ O, Mumsey, Mumsey,” she cried, “it is all true, 
every word of it.” 

“ Of course it is all true, dear,” replied Susan. “ Did 
you suppose that I had been in the other world all this 
time, ten long years, and never come back to see my 
dear Gilbert or you ? Should I have been contented, 
whilst on earth, to have neglected you for so long ? 
Why, the first boon I asked was to be allowed to 
return to my dear children. Only, I have never been 


THE DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE. 


127 


able to get so near to you as now. His influence kept 
me at a distance.” 

“ But if you come, may not he } ” asked Maddy, 
presently. 

“ No, no, not for a long time, at least ; certainly not 
until you have learned to think far more tenderly and 
compassionately of his past errors. Your controlling 
spirits would’ not let him approach you. /would not. 

cannot stand on the same plane as myself, nor can 
he communicate with me ; but my very presence would 
prevent his coming too near. Do not be afraid, my 
darling ; your father shall not be permitted to annoy 
you.” 

At these words, the Professor, who had been present 
during the whole of the interview, became very indig- 
nant. Not to be allowed to approach his own children, 
indeed ! Why should Susan be permitted to manifest 
herself, speaking to them openly of his faults and con- 
dition, and setting their minds against him, whilst he 
stood by and had not a word to say. He was spring- 
ing forward to take possession of the medium in his 
turn, when he found his feet glued to the spot where- 
on he stood. No efforts of his could unloose them. 
They were chained to the ground. 

“ What does this mean ? ” he asked, angrily. 

“ Simply, that you are to stay where you are,” re- 
plied John Poorest. 

“ Why should Susan be able to address Madeline, 
and not I ? ” 

“ Because she has received the permission of the 
Almighty, and you have not,” was the answer. “ If 


128 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


you spoke to Madeline you would undo all the good 
we hope to effect through Susan. You heard the dis- 
taste, nay, the fear, with which she anticipated your 
return. One word from you at this crisis would change 
the current of her life. It would so horrify her with 
Spiritualism that she would never seek it again.” 

Shall I never be able to address her or my son ? ” 

“ Perhaps ; it depends upon yourself. At present, 
you would do them the greatest harm. Let the merci- 
ful years roll over the memories you have left behind 
you. They do not smell sweet at this moment.” 

O, mother ! I believe you are my mother,” Maddy 
was saying, when he listened to her voice next ; “ and 
I am so very glad that I came here to meet you 
again.” 

“You did not come, my dear child; you were 
brought,” returned the spirit. “ It was I, myself, who 
accompanied you from Ethel’s house to this one. And 
now, one word to her. Thank you a thousand times, 
my dear sister, for the love and consideration you have 
shown to my children. It has not been unnoted ; it 
will not be forgotten, but redound in blessings on the 
heads of your own. But I must go now. The power 
is exhausted.” 

“One moment, mother,” exclaimed Madeline, who 
had sunk on her knees, and clasped her arms round the 
form of the medium. “ About that photograph ! — was 
it — can it have been you } ” 

“Assuredly it was I, my child. Who else could 
have imprinted my features on the camera, when, as 
you know, the only likenesses ever taken of me were 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


129 


locked away in your father’s writing-table ? I did that 
as a test, as something that should startle you and 
arrest your attention, as nothing else could have done. 
People might have talked to you of Spiritualism (as 
they did to your poor father) and only made you more 
obstinately resolved to believe nothing but what you 
chose ; but I knew the sight of my features would 
make you pause and think. And I have been success- 
ful.” 

“You have, indeed,” replied Madeline, seriously. 
“ I feel to-day as I have never felt before.” 

“ Good-by, good-by, dearest child,” said Susan, as, 
with a solemn kiss on her daughter’s forehead, she 
passed away again, and Mrs. Blewitt came back to 
earth life. She yawned once or twice, and then 
opened her eyes, smiling. 

“ I hope you have had a good sitting. Miss Ethel,” 
she said. “ Has any one been here ? ” 

“ O, yes, Emily,” replied Ethel. “ We have been 
deeply interested ; but I do not feel as if I could speak 
of it yet. It is all so new and wonderful to me.” 

Then she glanced at Madeline, and saw that she was 
crying. 

“ Don’t speak to me,” said the girl, as she saw a 
question hovering on the lips of her step-mother. “ I 
cannot help it. Please let me recover by myself.” 

Ethel and Mrs. Blewitt took the hint, and by the 
time the carriage called for them the girl was composed 
enough to return home. 

“ My daughter and wife complain that I did not 
direct them aright, with regard to the reality of an- 


130 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


other life,” grumbled the Professor ; but how could I 
teach them that which I did not know myself ? I re- 
ceived no evidences of another life — no spirits took the 
trouble to come back and teach me. How then am I 
to blame for their condition of mind?” 

“You are infinitely to blame,” was the reply ; “in 
fact you are the only one to blame. You not only 
kept others from them, who might have shown them 
the truth, but you took no steps to find it out for 
yourself. Because you could find nothing in your gross 
carnality to prove you had a soul, you jumped to the 
conclusion that nobody had a soul, and were content 
to deny the existence of another world, because you 
had never taken the trouble to inquire whether there 
was one or not. Had your children entered on spirit 
life as ignorant as you left them, it would not have 
been accounted to the^n for evil, but your purgatory 
would have been increased a hundred-fold.” 

“ Is there any way by which such a possibility may 
be averted now ? ” inquired the Professor. 

“ Did I not tell you yesterday that our lives can be 
atoned for, by doing them over again ? Every sin is 
forgivable in the eyes of the Almighty Spirit, but 
every sin must be atoned for. When you have made 
a mistake, rectify it.” 

“ How can we rectify what is past and gone ? ” 

“ By inducing others not to do the same. Every sin 
prevented is a grace gained. Do you see that 
wretched-looking woman walking in front of us, with a 
miserable, starved infant hidden under her ragged 
shawl ? Can you read her thoughts?” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. I3I 

I can. She thinks how much better it would be to 
drown herself and the child, than to continue the life of 
starvation and brutality she is now living. Is she not 
right? Would it not be better for them to be in the 
spirit world ? ” 

“ Perhaps, but they would not find themselves there. 
The Almighty has appointed a certain length of exist- 
ence for every human creature, and, if they cut it 
short for themselves, they still have to spend it on this 
earth, wandering about, as you are doing, neither fit 
for one place or the other. Do you see the spirit who 
follows in her wake ? ” 

‘‘ Yes. Is she a relation, or her guardian angel ? ” 

‘‘ Neither. She is a poor creature who committed 
the same crime : for ingratitude against God is the 
greatest crime of which a mortal can be guilty. She is 
earth-bound, in consequence, until she has expiated 
her error by preventing another creature from com- 
mitting the same. A life gained will atone for the 
life she took away. If she can prevent that woman 
from drowning her baby and herself, as she did whilst 
on earth, she will be able to plead the rescued lives 
before God’s throne, and He will break off the bands 
that chain her to the earth sphere.” 

And what then ? ” demanded the Professor. 

“ The poor spirit will be free to rise and progress. 
Cannot you perceive the drowned infant is still in her 
arms ? She has had to carry it ever since she took its 
little life away. It is a constant reproach to her. 
When, by her influence, she has saved another baby’s 
life, she will be allowed to hand hers over to the care 


32 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


of a sister spirit, and free to forget the unhappy past. 
Are you beginning to understand how evenly and 
justly the divine penances work ? ” 

“Yes, but what are these animals that cling so 
persistently about my feet wherever I go ? I do not 
like animals — I never did — is that a sin ? But why 
should these fpllow me so persistently ? ” 

“ Do you not recognize them ? They evidently 
know you. I think the poor brutes had reason to do 
so. These are the spirits of the dumb brutes whom 
you tortured in the name of science. These are the 
dogs, and rabbits, and cats which you vivisected for 
your own curiosity, and who died agonizing, lingering 
deaths under your cruel hands.” 

“ But surely, science must be pursued, even if a few 
wretched mongrels and cats, of no value to anybody, 
should have to suffer in its interests.” 

“You will not find it so, I am afraid. God, who 
made these creatures for our pleasure and our use, 
never intended them to minister to our discoveries, in 
science or anything else, by means of horrors too ter- 
rible to think of. All the long, weary hours of acute 
pain under which you kept these helpless creatures of 
God, in order that you might watch their hearts beat- 
ing, or the various parts of their organism working, 
have been reckoned up against you, and the animals 
themselves are ordained to accompany you throughout 
the hell you have created for yourself, till your own 
tortures will have so accumulated that you would be 
thankful to exchange them for those you made them 
suffer — aye, even to have your head and body laid out 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


33 


and secured on the vivisecting table, as theirs were, 
whilst all your nerves and most of the delicate portions 
of your system are mutilated by the dissecting knife. 
You will find there are two meanings to the text, 
* Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of 
these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ God, 
who does not let even a sparrow fall to the ground 
without His knowledge, will not forget the tortured 
cries and moans of His helpless animals. No, it is use- 
less for you to try to kick them away. You can no 
longer harm them, and they are under God’s orders, 
and not yours. Be thankful if you are not condemned 
to go through what you made them suffer.” 

The prospect you hold out is a pleasant one,” said 
the Professor, who was trembling with apprehension. 

It is not intended to be so,” replied John Forest, 
with unintentional satire. “You have not lived the 
sort of life that commands a pleasant prospect. You 
men on earth do not know the value of love, nor the 
consequences of a want of it. I have seen a little, 
ignorant spirit, who came into our world with all the 
lying and thieving propensities with which she had 
been reared from birth, who received her right of prog- 
ress as soon as she entered the spiritual gates. Why ? 
Because she had loved dumb animals, and shared her 
mouldy crusts with the mangy mongrels in the gutter, 
and her bits of rusty bacon with the cats from the 
house-tops. ‘And it was accounted unto her for 
righteousness.’ Do you understand me ? Come, we 
had better be moving on, and you can bring your little 
troop of vivisected animals with you. They can in- 


134 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


convenience no one, and, thank the good God, they will 
never suffer any more. It is your turn now to do that 
for them, and, perhaps, they would like to see it, and 
that is why they follow you. It can hardly be from 
love.” 


135 


CHAPTER X. 

MESSRS. BUNSTER AND ROBSON CALL. 

The next morning, Mrs. Aldwyn was smiling fur- 
tively to herself, over the contents of two letters which 
she had received through the post, when her step- 
daughter entered the room. 

“What is the joke, Mumsey she asked ; “what 
makes you smile?” 

“Nothing in particular, dear; only these. two old 
fogies, Mr. Bunster and Mr. Robson, have both written, 
desiring to see me on ^ particular business.’ Whatever 
can it be ? ” 

“ Proposals, evidently. You’ll have to make up your 
mind before this evening, whether you will be Mrs. 
Bunster or Mrs. Robson.” 

“Maddy, you silly girl, you know my mind is made 
up already. But where are you going so early ? ” — 
seeing that the girl was attired for walking — “ Not to 
Mr. Reynolds’ studio, I hope ? ” 

“ No, dear, nothing of the kind ; so don’t alarm your- 
self. I am bound in quite an opposite direction.” 

“ I was in hopes you would have supported me under 
the trying occasion before me.” 

“ O, you will manage very well alone. By the way, 
how do you know the old gentlemen, or, at all events, 
one of them, is not coming to offer me his hand ? 


136 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

Fancy, if you and I could lead the pair up to the 
hymeneal altar on the same day. Wouldn’t it be 
romantic ? Whom should we ask to be best men ? 
Methusaleh is dead, poor dear, or he would have done 
nicely for one ; so is old Parr. But I spotted a couple 
of centenarians in the Daily Telegraph the other day, 
and we might rout them up, if necessary.” 

“ If you go on any more in this mad strain, Maddy, 
I shall laugh in the respectable old gentlemen’s faces. 
Do be quiet, and leave me to myself. By the way, 
where are you going ? ” 

“You shall hear if you will be good and promise not 
to prevent me. I am going to see Mrs. Blewitt again. 
I made an arrangement to call this morning, before 
we parted last night.” 

“ Madeline ! you do surprise me. I thought you had 
such an inherent disbelief in all things supernatural.” 

“ So I had, but how can I disbelieve this ? If it is 
not my mother who spoke through her yesterday, it 
must be some one who knows all about us, and how 
can Mrs. Blewitt do so? Mumsey, what happened has 
made a tremendous impression on me. I can’t get it 
out of my head. I have been thinking o it half the 
night. You will not try to prevent my visiting Mrs. 
Blewitt, will you ? I want to go again and again, until 
I have solved the mystery, one way or the other.” 

“ Of course, I shall not attempt any such thing, 
dearest ; but Bermondsey is not a nice place for a 
young lady to be walking in alone. If you go, you 
must either take the carriage or Lotsom with you. 
But I should prefer the carriage, for I do not know 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


137 


what Emily would do with Lotsom while she was en- 
gaged with you, and we don’t want all the servants’ 
hall discussing our doings, do we ? ” 

“ Certainly not. But won’t you want the carriage 
yourself this morning?” 

“No, dear. You forget my two old gentlemen are 
coming to see me. One proposes to be here at eleven, 
the other at twelve. Such unearthly hours to pay 
visits. What can they be thinking of ? ” 

“ O, I daresay they have some important engage- 
ments for the afternoon ; a lecture on the ‘ Nebulae in 
the Moon,’ or a treatise on the ‘ Nervous Organization of 
Frogs’ — some of the delightful subjects papa was wrapt 
up in, and which caused his family circle to be so 
harmonious.” 

“ Maddy, remember what your mother said to you, 
and leave papa’s fads alone. If things had ended with 
them, all would have been right enough. Ring, 
and order the carriage, dear. It will be round in ten 
minutes, and then I shall feel easy about you.” 

Having done as she was told, Madeline asked : 

“ Mumsey, do you think my mother could tell me 
where Gillie is, and if we shall see him home again 
soon ? ” 

“ I think it very likely ; for, if she can watch over one 
of her children, surely she would do so for the other. 
Besides, if I remember rightly, she mentioned Gillie’s 
name with yours. Yes, do ask her, Maddy. It would be 
such a relief to know the dear boy was safe and well.” 

The carriage being now announced, the girl, after 
having affectionately embraced her step-mother, ran off 


138 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

with a face beaming with hope and expectation, whilst 
Ethel turned her thoughts towards her intended 
guests. 

The Professor was also very much exercised in his 
mind, as to what his old friends could possibly have to 
say to his widow. He had left them each a handsome 
remembrance in his will, consisting of a set of his own 
works on science, which, as he had told his father, were 
accepted (at all events, in his own opinion) as unques- 
tionable authority. Perhaps Robson and Bunster had 
been too delicate to intrude on the widow’s supposed 
grief before, and were coming to offer their condo- 
lences on the loss to science of such a luminary as him- 
self. He trusted that Ethel would receive them with 
becoming dignity, and not let them guess that she 
revered his memory so little as to have already engaged 
herself to marry another man. He watched her go up 
to the drawing-room mirror as the hour of eleven drew 
near, and pass her fingers through the fluffy curls on 
her forehead, and smooth down the pleats of her black 
dress. As the clock struck, Mr. Bunster was an- 
nounced. 

The Professor craned his neck eagerly to catch the 
first glimpse of his old crony. Bunster was a short, 
stout, little man of about sixty, with a preponderance 
of stomach, and a fussy, nervous manner, when with 
ladies, not unlike the immortal Pickwick. He entered 
the room, wiping his face with his handkerchief, and in 
a suit of light tweed, with a blue tie. 

“ I am surprised that Bunster has not even put on a 
crape band round his hat for me,” observed the Pro- 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


139 


fessor. “ I thought it was considered comme il faut 
to do so, when you received a legacy from a friend.” 

** Wait and hear what his errand may be before you 
condemn him,” replied John Forest; “he may have 
some good reason for dressing gaily. Mourning is not 
worn for so long now as it used to be.” 

“ To be sure. I forgot that,” said the Professor. 

“How are you, Mr. Punster ?” said Ethel, as she 
advanced to receive him. 

“ Quite well, my dear lady, and I hope I see you the 
same. What a charming day it is, to be sure. Have 
you been out ? ” 

“Not yet. You timed your visit so early that I 
thought I had better remain in, for fear of missing you. 
But will you not be seated ? ” 

“ I trust I did not incommode you by naming so 
early an hour,” said Mr. Punster, as he subsided into a 
chair. “ But I had an especial reason for wishing to 
see you alone — before the giddy throng of fashion had 
claimed you for its own.” 

“ O, Mr. Punster, you mustn’t talk of fashion to me. 
I have been only three months a widow, remember.” 

“Three months !” exclaimed Punster, “they have 
seemed like three years to me.” 

“ Have you really missed your old friend so much as 
that ? ” asked Ethel, sympathetically. 

“ My old friend ! Do you mean the Professor ? 
Well, of course, we were friends in a sense — all persons 
who are interested in the same pursuits cling together. 
Your late husband, Mrs. Aldwyn, and I were associ- 
ated in scientific work — and that naturally induced 


140 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


an intimacy — but as for friendship, well, if you will 
permit me to say so, the bright, particular star that 
drew me so constantly to this abode was — not the 
Professor so much as a certain charming lady who pre- 
sided over it.” 

“Complimenting my wife. How dare he com- 
menced the Professor. 

“ O, you will find men are very daring, now that you 
are out of the way,” replied his guide. “ And why 
should they not be ? She is a woman : therefore, to be 
wooed. She is a woman : therefore, to be won. Don’t 
foget that you are looking at your widow — not your 
wife.” 

The Professor swore between his teeth. 

“ Don’t do that, it’s foolish,” said John Forest. 
“ Every word you say now is noted down, and will be 
taken as evidence against you.” 

“ O, that is a very pretty compliment,” said Ethel, 
who was already beginning to find it difficult to keep 
her countenance, with the memory of Madeline’s words 
before her. 

“ No compliment, I assure you, my dear lady, but 
the solemn truth,” replied Punster. “ No one envied 
the Professor, during his life-time, more than your 
humble servant, and no one would — ahem,” concluded 
Mr. Punster, with a nervous cough. 

“ I fear you must have taken cold,” remarked Ethel ; 
“let me offer you a jujube. Do you like them? 
Maddy and I think they are lovely. We are always 
eating them. Our confectioner’s bill is something 
cruel.” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 141 

“Ah, you love sweets. You must let me send you 
some. Do you like American candies ? There is a 
shop in Regent street that is quite famous for them. 
Have you ever tasted candied violets ? ” 

“ No, no, Mr. Bunster, I cannot possibly allow you to 
think of providing our sugary wants. You don’t know 
what you are proposing. You would be ruined in a 
fortnight. Madeline and I are insatiable. We gor- 
mandize sweets all day long.” 

“ Then you would make me happy all day long. 
Ah, you do not know what bliss it would be for me if 
I could provide for your every want, dear Mrs. Aldwyn. 
And it would take you some time to get through my 
income. I am not dependent on my profession for a 
living. I inherited an ample fortune from my parents, 
and I have never wasted it yet on wife or child. As I 
stand (or I should rather say, as I sit) before you, you 
view me wholly without incumbrances, or vicious 
tastes ; and, in these days of extravagance and reckless 
marriages, I consider, dear Mrs. Aldwyn, that that is 
no mean credential in a man.” 

“ O, certainly not. It is very nice and satisfactory,”” 
said Ethel, who did not know what to say. 

“Then, will you take me, dearest Mrs. Aldwyn, 
for your own ? ” exclaimed Mr. Bunster, falling on 
one knee before her. “ Will you make me the hap- 
piest man in England, by accepting my fortune — 
eight hundred a year in British consols, and all of it 
would be settled unconditionally on yourself in the 
event of my demise — and the homage of my life ? 
Will you — of course after the necessary time that 


142 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


custom demands shall have elapsed — become Mrs. 
Bunster?” 

Ethel looked at the prostrate old gentleman for a 
minute in surprise, and then, feeling more shame than 
anything else for the folly of which he was guilty, she 
implored him to get up. 

“ Do, please, Mr. Bunster,” she kept on saying. 
^‘Suppose James should come in for anything, it 
would look so dreadful — so ridiculous ” 

“ Ridiculous, Mrs. Aldwyn ! ” exclaimed Bunster, 
taking offense at once. “ I don’t consider that is the 
proper term to apply to the situation. What is there 
ridiculous in a gentleman making an honorable offer of 
marriage to the lady of his choice, in the position 
which has been recognized as the most respectful one 
from time immemorial ? ” 

O, no, indeed. Do get up. You can’t think how 
funny you look. No one kneels now, except in church. 
If any one were to catch you in that position, I should 
die of shame.” 

“Very well, Mrs. Aldwyn; very well, madam,” ex- 
claimed Mr. Bunster, wrathfully, as he scrambled to 
his feet. “You may live to regret that you treated 
my proposal with so much scorn.” 

“ O, no ; not scorn, Mr. Bunster ; believe me. But 
you forget how short a time has elapsed since the 
Professor departed this life. Only three months ! 
What would the world say if it saw me accepting 
sweets from you, or any other marrying man, so very 
soon ? ” 

“Three months,” repeated Bunster. “Three days. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


143 


ma’am, would be too long, in my opinion, to mourn for 
such a man ” 

“ What ! ” cried the Professor, springing forward as 
if he would have seized Bunster by the throat. “And 
this was my own particular friend — the man who used 
to dine at my house five days out of the seven, and 
who borrowed all my instruments from me, as well as 
half my ideas. Let me only get at him, and I’ll shake 
the life out of him.” 

“ Just so,” said John Forest ; “ but that ‘ only’ is an 
effectual barrier, I am afraid. You may grasp him as 
much as you like, Henry Aldwyn. He will only feel a 
current of air at his throat, and look round to see where 
the draught comes in. You will do yourself more good 
by listening to what he says.” 

“ a man,” went on Burtster, “who denied you 

every reasonable enjoyment ; who boasted to his male 
acquaintances how he had curbed and broken your 
spirit, as he did that of the dumb brutes in his vivisect- 
ing trough, until you knew no will but his own ; who 
was so mean, that he would not spend as much on your 
pleasure in a year as he did on his own experiments in 
a day ; who ” 

“Mr. Bunster,” interposed Ethel, proudly, “what- 
ever my late husband’s faults may have been, it is not 
my part to discuss them with you, nor yours to re- 
mind me of them. You have exceeded the mission on 
which you came here, sir. Be good enough to leave 
me now to myself.” 

Approaching the bell, she rang it, and simply saying 
the word “door” to the servant, she bowed to her re- 


144 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


treating guest, who had no alternative but to take the 
hint so decidedly offered him and quit her presence. 

Ethel half laughed and half cried when she found 
herself alone. The interview had made her quite 
hysterical, and she could not help wondering if Mr. 
Robson were coming on the same errand. But two in 
one day. It would be ridiculous. It could never be. 

Mr. Robson was as punctual as Mr. Bunster had 
been. They were both business men, and could not 
afford to waste their time. Robson was a very different 
looking person from Bunster. He was gaunt and tall, 
with a lantern-jaw, and red hair. His age might have 
been about forty. In years, he would have been a more 
suitable match for the Professor’s widow ; but he had 
no money, and marriage had never entered his head. 

“ I asked to see you early, Mrs. Aldwyn,” he com- 
menced, “ because my business with you is of a deli- 
cate nature, and will not brook interruption.” 

At this address, Ethel made sure he was going to 
imitate the example of his predecessor, and had almost 
forestalled his proposal by telling him it was of no use 
his making it. How glad she was afterwards that she 
had not done so. 

“Indeed, Mr. Robson,” she replied; “and what 
may that be ? ” 

“ I trust I shall not hurt your feelings, my dear lady ; 
but of that, I fancy, there is little fear. I wanted to 
ask you if (the Professor having now been gone for 
three months) there is not a chance of his library com- 
ing to the hammer ? ” 

“ O, the books,” said Ethel, much relieved. “ I’m 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. I45 

sure I cannot tell you, Mr. Robson. In fact, I have 
not thought of it.” 

“ But surely you are not going to keep all those 
scientific works, which can have no value whatever in 
a lady’s eyes ? ” 

“ No, I suppose not. But I am not sure to whom 
they will eventually belong. The late Professor’s 
children inherit the property at my death. Perhaps 
we have no right to sell anything out of the house.” 

Robson looked disappointed. 

“ There are some books amongst them,” he said, “ that 
would be worth any money to a student of science.” 

“ You mean my late husband’s writings, I suppose ? ” 
said Ethel, timidly. 

The Professor saw Robson smile sardonically. 

The Professor’s ? O, yes ! ” he replied, shrugging 
his shoulders. “ They are all very well, I daresay, for 
a student — a beginner — in the abstruse sciences, and I 
believe he thought very highly of them himself. Most 
men do of their own works ; but, my dear madam, it 
has not been left for me to tell you surely that your 
late husband was but a dabbler in his profession.” 

A Dabbler ! ” shrieked the voiceless Professor. 
who wrote ‘On Subcutaneous Nervi’ and ‘The Aorta 
of Tadpoles and Other Germs ’ ! O, this man is in- 
sulting my memory. How dare he defame the dead 
in this atrocious manner?” 

“ They dare a great many things when they believe 
they are unheard,” remarked his guide. “ This is by 
no means the worst you will have to hear of yourself. 
It’s of no use getting in a rage over it. No one will 


146 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

be the wiser for your doing so, and you will lose, per- 
haps, the gist of the conversation.” 

“ I don’t profess to know anything about such 
things,” replied Ethel. “ But I thought people con- 
sidered him clever. It is not his works, then, that you 
desire to possess ? ” 

“ His works ! no. I wouldn’t light my fire with 
them. But he has some valuable books in his collec- 
tion ; and, if they are to be sold, I should like to pur- 
chase them by private contract, or have early informa- 
tion of when they will be put up to auction. Will you 
oblige me by making a note of this, Mrs. Aldwyn, and 
acting accordingly ” 

I will, with pleasure, Mr. Robson. I feel sure 
that, if his library is ever dispersed, my late husband 
would far rather the books went into the hands of an 
old friend, like yourself, than those of a stranger.” 

No ! no ! no ! I wouldn’t ! He shan’t have them ! 
Traitor! Defamer! Liar!” yelled the Professor, as he 
foamed at the mouth with impotent rage. But his 
execrations were borne away on the air, and died on 
the balmy breeze which floated in at the open window. 

I would give a handsome sum for the orthodox 
ones, Mrs. Aldwyn ; but none of his — none of the rub- 
bish, remember,” said Robson. 

I won’t forget,” replied Ethel, smiling, just as if he 
had paid the greatest possible compliment to the 
ability of her late husband. 

“ And, now that we have discussed that little matter,” 
said Mr. Robson, “may I ask how you and the young 
lady are getting on 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


147 


“Very well, indeed,” answered Ethel. “We are the 
best of friends, and never quarrel.” 

“ Ah, poor things, you had enough of that, I guess, 
in the old days. Pity the Professor made himself so 
universally disliked, for he wasn’t a fool by any manner 
of means, but terribly inflated with the idea of his own 
wisdom. However, if he had unbent a little more, 
there were many men — men of real genius, and no pre- 
tense about it — who would have taken him by the 
hand and given him a lift ; but, there, you see, he im- 
agined he knew everything ; and this sort of men 
never grow any wiser to their life’s end. I expect he 
has had his eyes considerably opened by this time. 
You’re none the worse off for his having gone, / know,” 
said Robson, winking at the widow. 

“ I don’t pretend to be inconsolable, Mr. Robson,” 
said Ethel, in reply; “but I would rather think as 
kindly of my husband as I can, now he is no more. 
We all have our faults, you know, but his certainly 
did not consist of a want of hospitality towards your- 
self. I think he thoroughly believed in you as his 
friend, and, I am sure, he did all he could to please 
you. YoUy therefore, are not the person to try and 
decry him in the eyes of his widow.” 

“No more I am,” exclaimed Robson, suddenly; 
“and, by Jove, madam, you have made me feel 
ashamed of myself. Will you pardon me ? Professor 
Aldwyn, although no scientist, except in his own ideas, 
was a hospitable friend to me and others like me, 
and I ought to have bitten out my tongue before I 
mentioned him in such a manner before you to-day. 


148 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


I really don’t know how to make any excuse for my- 
self. The words slipped out before I was aware.” 

“You have said quite enough, Mr. Robson, and I 
accept your apology,” replied Ethel ; “ and now, as we 
have made up our little difference, will you stay and 
have some luncheon with Miss Aldwyn and myself ? 
She is out just now, but I fully expect her back to 
lunch. You will be surprised, I am sure, to see the 
alteration these few months have made in her. She 
seems to have developed into such a woman since her 
father’s death. All trace of childhood has gone.” 

“You mean that she has unfolded like a blossom 
beneath the sunshine of your maternal care?” said Mr. 
Robson, gallantly. 

“That is very prettily put,” replied Ethel, smiling, 
“ but I really believe it is true. We love each other, 
and both the children sadly needed affection.” 

“ Have you had any tidings of the son yet ? ” 

“ No ; but we hope to have very soon. My solicitors 
seem quite confident that he went to sea, and that, as 
soon as he hears of the Professor’s death, he will re- 
turn home.” 

“Yes, yes, no doubt. It will be a very different 
home now from what it was before.” 

At this moment Madeline entered the room, looking 
flushed and excited. 

“Ah, Maddy, you are just in time for luncheon. 
Mr. Robson will stay and take it with us. You re- 
member your father’s friend, Mr. Robson, don’t you ? ” 

“ Why, certainly. Did he not dine here the very 
night papa died? How are you, Mr. Robson? I am 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


149 


very glad to see you,” she said, holding out her hand, 
and then she stooped and whispered to Ethel: “All 
right, eh ? Is this the favored one ? ” and nearly sent 
her step-mother off into a fit of laughing in the face of 
her guest. However, luncheon was happily announced 
about the same time, and, in the discussion of fricasseed 
chicken and game, Mr. Robson, who was a regular 
glutton, forgot to inquire the reason of their mirth. 

As soon as they had got rid of him, Maddy burst 
out : 

“ O, Mumsey, why did you ask that old horror to 
stay to lunch ? I was bursting to tell you my news all 
the time.” 

“Well, dear, I thought I could hardly do less. He 
arrived just at lunch-time, you see, and having been 
such an intimate friend of papa’s ” 

“Well, he’s gone at last, thank goodness, though I 
really thought he had no intention of moving whilst 
there was a bone left on the table. So, now, let us 
shut the door and be quite by ourselves. I’ve seen Mrs. 
Blewitt, of course, and the lady who says she is my 
mother, and she told me that dear Gillie is on a ship 
in the Malacca Straits, acting as cook boy (Can you im- 
agine anything more horrible ?), and the ship is loading 
with opium, and the smell has made him quite sick, 
and he won’t be home again for many months, because 
the ship is going from China to the United States.” 

“ O, Maddy, I am sorry to hear that. I wonder if it 
is true. I had so hoped the dear boy would have re- 
turned to us this summer.” 

“ Of course, I can only tell you what my mother 


150 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

said to me,” replied the girl ; “ but she seemed to 
know all about him. She told me he had grown very 
thin and weak since leaving home ; that the work had 
been far too hard for him, and the society he has 
to keep is something too dreadful to mention. Fancy 
our poor Gillie, who was so delicately inclined that he 
turned sick at the sight of blood, and could not bear 
to hear swearing, or bad language, being subjected to 
such horrors. I often told him that I was more like a 
boy than he was, and used to indulge in a big, big D 
sometimes, just for the fun of shocking him.” 

“ I know you did, you naughty girl ! And your ac- 
count would make me more unhappy than it does, if I 
did not think that evil of any sort would run off Gil- 
bert’s mind like water from a duck’s back. It will 
make him very unhappy, though, and I shall be more 
anxious than ever to see him safely home again. If 
we only could communicate with him. Did you ask 
Susan to tell you the name of his ship ? ” 

“ I did, indeed. It was one of the first questions I 
put to her ; but either she could not tell me, or she 
would not.” 

“ But, my dear, that is very strange. If she can see 
Gillie and the ship where he is, how is it she cannot tell 
its name? I can’t understand that.” 

“ No more can I,” responded Madeline. 

The Professor looked towards his guide for an ex- 
planation. 

“ Why is it ? ” he asked. “ It seems as incompre- 
hensible to me as to them.” 

That is because you know no more than they do — 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 151 

indeed, a great deal less than they do — of the spiritual 
laws. The reason is, because spirits can only divulge 
what they are allowed to do. If they told everything, 
the designs of the Almighty might be frustrated.” 

“How?” 

“ I will take the case of your son, as an example. 
What would be the consequence if Susan had told 
Madeline the name of his ship ? Ethel would at once 
have written to him (or wired, more likely) the news of 
your death, entreating him to return to England at 
once.” 

“And why should he not do so?” 

“ Because it is intended that he shall suffer, as well 
as yourself, for the incident that took him away from 
home. If you were cruel and insulting, Gilbert was 
rebellious against due authority. We are directed to 
open his eyes a little more plainly to the folly of his 
behavior, before he returns to all the luxuries of 
home. For this purpose, he will have to make the 
voyage to America, as designed, before reaching 
England. By that time he will have suffered so much 
inconvenience and hardship that he will be ready 
almost to return, like the prodigal son in the Bible, 
saying : ‘ Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee.’ Mind, I do not say that were you still on 
earth he would do so, only that he will have been so 
humbled by the experiences he will have passed 
through as to be ready to do it.” 

“ May I know how many months more he will be 
absent from home ? ” 

“Certainly; for you are destined to pass them with 


152 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


him. Gilbert will not step on English ground till you 
have been in your grave for a year.” 

“ And I am destined, you say, to pass these months 
by his side ? ” 

“You are. It is ordained that you shall visit him, 
and I do not think you will wish to leave him again 
until his surroundings are less dangerous. At present, 
the poor lad is ill and threatened with fever.” 

“ Let us go to him at once.” 

“ By all means,” replied his guide. “ Every good 
wish that you express you will always find gratified. 
Just place your hand on mine.” 

The Professor did as he was desired — he experienced 
a sensation as though he were floating dreamily through 
a bath of warm, scented air — and, when he opened his 
eyes again, he found he was standing, with John 
Forest, on the deck of a second-class trading vessel. 


53 


CHAPTER XL 

IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 

When Gilbert Aldwyn ran out of his father’s house 
he was so excited he hardly knew what he was doing. 
He was only sixteen, and a very delicate and sensitive 
lad for his age. He had never shifted for himself in 
any way before ; and he had no idea what he should 
do or where he should go. But the insult which had 
been offered to the memory of his dead mother was 
more than the boy’s proud spirit could stand. He had 
but the faintest recollection of her — the recollection of 
a child of six years old — but the loyalty with which 
most young men regard the name of their mother ; 
the pride which will not brook a slur upon her fair 
fame ; the contempt with which they must regard the 
craven who attempts to insult and annoy them at her 
expense, were all burning in his youthful breast, as he 
turned his back, with scorn, on the Professor’s dwell- 
ing place. He was sorry to leave Madeline and his 
step-mother — more sorry afterwards than he had time 
at the moment to realize — but he would have parted 
with a thousand friends (however dearly he loved 
them) rather than have stayed to hear his dead mother 
defamed by the man whose crust he ate and whose 
roof sheltered him. 

As he left what had been his home, he ran for some 


154 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


distance, almost rejoicing at the ease with which he 
quitted it, and the distance he could put between his 
father and himself. But, after awhile, he stopped 
running and began to consider what he should do, 
where he should go, and how find work wherewith to 
support himself. At this thought Gilbert halted and 
sat down on a bench to recover his breath. He found 
he was in the Embankment Gardens. He had run for 
a couple of miles without stopping, and felt disposed 
for a rest. He put his hand in his pocket and drew 
thence three shillings and ninepence. That was the 
extent of his stock in trade. How much he regretted 
that he had not carried his savings box, which con- 
tained four pounds ten shillings, with him. He had 
been on the point of taking the money out of ic the 
day before in order to purchase a fishing rod and line, 
but something had prevented him. It was just like his 
luck, thought Gilbert, and now “ Old Cheese-parings,” 
as he irreverently called the Professor, would have the 
benefit of his savings. Well, it couldn’t be helped, 
and, if he could only make enough money to keep his 
soul in his body, he should not regret its loss. 

His wish was, of course, to go to sea. What lad, 
leaving his home in an unorthodox manner, does not 
regard the sea as his haven of success ? Gilbert knew 
nothing of a seafaring life. He had not e'«"en a friend, 
or a relation of whom he could have taken counsel on 
the subject. All his knowledge had been gathered 
from books, where runaway lads became captains of 
their own vessels in a few years, and rise rapidly to 
fame and prosperity. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


155 


But he knew so far, that the vessels that are about 
to leave London lie at anchor in the docks at Milwall, 
or down the river at Tilbury. So he determined to go 
to Milwall first. 

A few inquiries from a friendly policeman, who was 
taken in by his gentlemanly appearance to believe his 
story, that he simply wanted to visit a young friend 
whose ship was lying there, soon gained him the neces- 
sary information how to get to the docks by the Metro- 
politan railway, and in another hour he was walking 
disconsolately up and down the wilderness of plank- 
ing and the forest of masts, that seem tp constitute the 
docks of London. He was dressed so well that no one 
would have thought he was in search of employment, 
until he timidly ventured to enter one of the offices 
and ask if they could tell him of any ship on which it 
was likely he should get work. But the clerk in attend- 
ance put so many questions to him, and scrutinized his 
appearance so narrowly, that Gilbert grew frightened 
lest he should discover his identity and send him back 
to his father ; and a sudden thought of this kind made 
him give a false name when asked what he called himself. 

The appellation of the young hero in the last boy’s 
book he had read on the subject flashed into his mind, 
and he answered, “ John Dare,” before he knew what 
he was about. 

“ Ah, well, Mr. John Dare,” replied the shipping clerk, 
“ if you want to go to sea, my advice to you is, to go 
back to your friends and get them to ’prentice you 
properly, and not let you hang about the docks as if 
you had left home without leave.” 


156 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

This remark, which hit the truth so nearly, sent poor 
Gilbert flying out of the ofiice again, in case the intel- 
ligent clerk might consider it his duty to make his 
story patent to the police. 

He wandered about till nightfall without meeting 
with any success, and then felt compelled to creep into 
one of the drinking houses just outside the docks, 
which are frequented by the lowest class of sailors and 
their associates. It was a rough, disreputable place, 
but the woman who kept it had a kind heart, and the 
lad’s dejected appearance and neat clothing struck her 
at once. 

She made him as comfortable as she could, drawing 
him away from the crowd of coarse men and women 
in the front parlor into her private room at the back, 
and her sympathy was so great that, in a very short 
time, she had heard, with the exception of his right 
name, all Gilbert’s sad little story. 

“ Why, my dear,” she exclaimed, when he had 
finished, “ you’ll never get no work whilst you show 
yourself in them togs. Any one could see you was a 
gentleman’s kid at once, and would do their level best 
to keep you out. If you wants low work you must 
dress accordin’.” 

But what am I to do? ’’said Gillie, looking rue- 
fully at his nice tweed suit and white collar and cuffs ; 

I have no shabby clothes. I wish I had.” 

“ Well, if that’s the trouble, I daresay I can help 
you. I’ve a son about your size, and I’d be main glad 
to get your suit for him for Sundays. So if you feel 
inclined to swop I would give you two sets of Joe’s 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE, 1 5/ 

duds for them. You’d want a change aboard ; 
’twouldn’t never do to start with only one. When I 
says sets I mean a couple of bags, and two jackets and 
two jumpers. You could keep your shirt, though it’s 
a deal too good for sea, and socks and shoes for when 
you go ashore. What do you say to the bargain ? ” 

“ I’ll be very glad to let you have them if they will 
prevent my getting work, and the sooner we make the 
exchange the better.” 

The woman quickly got down the dirty suits which 
she called Joe’s duds,” and swapped them for Gillie’s 
clothes, which had cost three pound ten a short time 
before. 

“And now I’ll tell you what,” remarked the woman, 
who was infinitely pleased with her bargain, as she had 
every reason to be : “ my brother, he’s boatswain aboard 
the ‘ Anne of Hungary,’ which is due to sail to-morrer; 
and he’s the man, if any, to let us know if there’s any 
likely work for you about here. Mark, he’s in the bar 
now, and as soon as I can get speech of him I’ll 
let you know what he says. And while I’m gone you’d 
better slip into them things and tie the rest up into a 
bundle, ready to take with you, in case you have to 
start sudden-like.” 

She bustled away, and Gilbert commenced the dis- 
tasteful task of arraying himself in “ Joe’s duds,” which 
were not only ragged and worn, but coated with dirt. 
The smell of them alone made him sick, and more than 
once he felt as if it were impossible to wear them, and 
he must get back into his own clothes. But the 
thought of work, which he must procure unless he in- 


158 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


tended to starve, returned to his mind and prevented 
so rash an act. He was seated in infinite discomfort 
when his landlady returned, accompanied by her brother. 

Now, here’s the devil’s own luck for you, mister,” 
she began. My brother, here, tells me he come 
ashore a purpus to look for a cook’s boy, as theirn has 
run away at the last minnit. Here is the young man, 
Mark,” she went on, intimating Gilbert with her hand. 
“ And he looks a likely ’un to me, for all he wants a 
bit o’ fattenin’, and feeding up.” 

Well, he’ll have plenty of opportunities for to 
fatten hisself in the cook’s galley,” replied Mark, who 
was a bluff, good-natured looking fellow, not unlike 
his sister. “ And wheere have you bin pickin’ up your 
livin’, young un’, may I ask? Are you new to the 
sea ?” 

O, quite, sir,” replied Gilbert ; “ but I should like 
to go to sea very much indeed.” 

O, that’s wot you think, is it ? Well, theere’s noth- 
in’ like tryin’. You’ve never seen a cook’s galley, I 
fancy ? ” 

No, never. Shall I have to help to cook ? I know 
how to cook some things, but not many.” 

‘^You’ll have to obey orders, my lad, and do as 
you’re told, or you’ll get a taste of the cat. That’s 
wot you’ll have to do. Your wages won’t be a fortin, 
but then you’ll live like a fightin’ cock all the year round, 
and have a snug bunk to turn into when your work’s 
done. And when we touches shore, that’s the time for 
larks. Lor ! it is a jolly life and no mistake. Wot do 
you say ? Will you come along of us?” 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


159 


“ O, yes, yes,” replied Gilbert, who had no more 
notion of what he was about to undertake than the 
babe who had just entered the world, and was only 
glad to think he had procured work so soon. 

“ Well, then my job ashore is finished, and you can 
just pick up your bundle and come along o’ me. By 
the way, how are you called ? ” 

“ John Dare, sir.” 

‘‘All right, John. Give ’im a drink. Bet, and then 
we’ll be off. Though it’s as mild as mother’s milk to- 
night, he seems shiverin’ like with cold. Here, my lad, 
drink off that tot and you’ll feel more like a man.” 

Saying which, Mark Staveley marched off to the 
“ Anne of Hungary ” with his new friend trembling in 
his wake — not trembling with cold or fear, but that 
strange feeling which sometimes comes over us when 
we have finally decided on taking a step of which we 
cannot see the end. 

The end was a very direful one for him. Delicately 
nurtured and brought up (for though the Professor was 
cruel and harsh to his children he had never denied 
them the necessaries of life), he was as unfitted for 
such a position as a lad could possibly be. Never 
accustomed to associate with companions beneath his 
own station in life, he was now compelled to herd with 
the lowest and coarsest of mankind. Sailors from 
every part of the globe — Dutch, German, Swedish, 
Chinese — men who were hardly worthy of the name ; 
whose habits were filthy, and conversation obscene, 
and full of the most blasphemous oaths, which made 
him shudder to listen to ; men whose natures, whatever 


i6o 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


they were at first, had become lower than those of the 
beasts that perish ; these were the sort of creatures 
who assembled night after night in the cook’s galley 
and made the air pestilential with their disgusting 
conversation. 

They were not content either that Gilbert (or John, 
as they called him) should listen to what they said 
without complaint — they insisted on his taking part in 
the discourse or being tabooed as a milksop, and an 
outsider. His speech and manners soon betrayed his 
origin and bringing up, and made the rough sailors see 
that he was not one of themselves ; but this fact, in- 
stead of mollifying, enraged them, and made them 
determined not to rest till they had pulled down all 
his nonsense and utterly demoralized him. 

They ridiculed the refinement of his manner, and 
insisted upon his using oaths, as they did. They 
revenged themselves for every shocked look the poor 
lad gave, however involuntarily, by tormenting him 
till he had neither courage to eat or drink. The work 
was very hard and, of course, Gilbert was utterly un- 
accustomed to it ; but when he was allowed to snatch 
four or five hours of troubled sleep they would pull 
him out of his bunk by the heels and put him under 
the tap, or threaten to throw him overboard unless he 
repeated sundry blasphemous and filthy words after 
them. His life was wholly miserable and almost un- 
endurable, but he knew that if he appealed to higher 
authority it would be rendered a still greater hell to 
him, or probably ended altogether. 

Because he had innocently said “ thank you,” for 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. l6l 

some aid given him when first coming aboard, he had 
gained the name amongst his comrades of “ Mr. 
Politeful,” and every reminiscence of his old life was 
hailed by the crew with shouts of derision. 

His duties consisted, apparently, of waiting on 
everybody else, and taking the blame for everything 
that went wrong in the galley and forecastle of the 
“Anne of Hungary.” One of the younger officers of 
the vessel had noticed him once, and, struck by his 
intonation, had put a few questions to him relative to 
his antecedents, but Gilbert had been so reticent, and 
answered with such evident reluctance, that he had 
stopped his catechism, respecting the boy’s desire for 
silence. 

But one day the brutalities practiced on him reached 
their climax. The “ Anne of Hungary ” was lying off 
the island of Penang, when a seaman named Masters, 
a powerful, drunken brute, out-stayed his leave ashore 
and climbed up the ship’s chains in the middle of the 
night, cutting down the companion ladder with such 
rapidity that the officer on watch had no time to 
recognize him. 

He was pretty well assured of his identity, however, 
and the following morning Masters was had up and in- 
formed that his leave was stopped for the future. The 
man swore he had done nothing to merit the punish- 
ment, and, when accused of dereliction of duty the 
night before, took his solemn oath that he had been in 
on time, and that the lad, John Dare, was the only hand 
who had out-stayed his leave. When Gilbert was con- 
fronted with his accuser, however, he steadfastly denied 


1 62 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

the charge, bringing a witness to his presence aboard, 
and another to prove that when the bells to turn in 
sounded Nick Masters’ bunk was empty. The effect 
of this was that Gilbert was acquitted and Masters was 
condemned, upon which he returned to the forecastle, 
swearing vengeance against his betrayer. 

Gilbert did not know what he had brought upon 
himself, nor how like savage brutes the men aboard a 
merchant vessel are ; but the following night a piercing 
shriek sounded throughout the “Anne of Hungary,” 
and John Dare, the cook’s boy, rushed on deck, scream- 
ing with pain. The officer of the watch and several 
seamen were on the spot at once, and tried to hold the 
youth in their arms, but it took all their united strength 
to do so. He tore wildly round and round the deck, 
attempting to throw himself into the sea, as though 
the agony he was suffering had maddened him. At 
last, however, by main force, they managed to arrest 
his course, when it was found that some inhuman 
wretch had taken the opportunity, whilst he was sleep- 
ing, to squirt the juice of green chilies into his eyes, 
thereby causing him the most acute agony, and threat- 
ening to destroy his sight altogether. The unfortunate 
lad was put to bed, and attended to by the ship’s 
doctor ; but the author of the outrage, although 
shrewdly suspected to be Nick Masters, was never dis- 
covered, and, therefore, went unpunished. Meanwhile, 
the pain Gilbert endured, combined with the heat of 
the climate, threw him into a nervous fever, at inter- 
vals of which he was raving, when the Professor was 
led by John Forest to his side. 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 163 

At first, the Professor hardly knew where he was, or 
why he had been brought into such a filthy place as 
the forecastle of a second-rate merchant vessel. He 
had never been aboard such a ship during his earthly 
life, and the smells and sounds confused him. 

‘‘ Where on earth have you brought me ? ” was the 
first question he addressed to his guide, as they stood 
together on the quarter deck. 

I have brought you to visit your son, Gilbert. I 
thought you expressed a wish to see him.” 

“ Gilbert ! Why, certainly ; but what can he be 
doing here ? This is not the officers’ quarters of the 
vessel, surely ? ” 

It is not. Gilbert did not embark as an officer. 
He took the first chance of work which presented itself 
to him — the only chance of living which your treat- 
ment had left to him. ‘ Beggars cannot be choosers,’ 
you know.” 

At this moment a long wail came on the air, floating 
towards them from a small, low, ill-flavored cabin on 
their right. 

“What is that?” demanded the Professor. “It 
sounded like an animal in pain.” 

“Ah, should be able to judge of that, shouldn’t 
you ? You’ve heard it more than once. But, this 
time, you are mistaken. That cry of anguish comes 
from a higher sort of animal — from, in fact, your son 
Gilbert.” 

“ Gilbert in that confined, evil-smelling crib ?” ex- 
claimed the Professor, with amazement. “But why? 
What has he done ? Is he imprisoned for any crime ? ” 


164 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ Only for the crime of having you for his father, 
which hardly can be called such, perhaps. He is not 
in prison. That is his regular sleeping-place. But he 
is in great pain, and some danger. Suppose we enter 
and have a look at him.” 

Accordingly, the two spirits entered the wretched 
cabin together, and looked down on Gilbert lying on 
his uncomfortable pallet. His bed consisted of a thin, 
hard mattress laid on a bunk of deal boards ; his pil- 
low was a bolster stuffed with wool ; he wore no night 
shirt, but only a coarse, woolen vest, open at the chest, 
and his whole appearance was dirty and squalid. 

But the most pitiable change of all was in his per- 
sonal appearance. He was thin and emaciated to a 
degree. The hard fare had not agreed with him. He 
could not stomach nor digest it, and the hard work 
had done the rest. Gilbert was, evidently, on the 
high road to a consumption. His sightless eyes were 
closed and swollen ; his aching head was constantly 
moving from side to side in a vain quest for repose, 
and his white face and skeleton arms were sufficient 
appeal in themselves against the cruelty of those who 
had driven a delicately-nurtured lad to such a condi- 
tion. 


i65 


CHAPTER XIL 

ONE EARNEST WISH TO R» SE. 

My God ! ” exclaimed the Professor, as he gazed 
with horror on the prostrate form of his only son. 

Who has done this ? ” 

“ You'' replied John Forest. 

‘‘O, no ; that is not just. I reprimanded him, it is 
true ; but I never thought it would drive him to such 
a course. And then I was cut off so suddenly, re- 
member. I had no time given me to remedy the mis- 
take which I had made. Had I been spared for a few 
days longer, I should, in all probability, have sought 
him out and rescued him from such a terrible fate.” 

“You would not ; but that is not the point at issue. 
None of us know, Henry Aldwyn, when we commit an 
error, if we shall be spared to rectify it. You could 
not foresee the evils your harshness would produce. 
So far, you are correct ; but you know that your 
harshness itself was wrong, therefore you are account- 
able for what followed it. I repeat (and I speak by 
virtue of the orders given me from above) that are 
the only person to blame for Gilbert lying here at the 
point of death.” 

“ Can I do him no good ? ” asked the Professor, a.3 
he drew closer to the bunk wherein his son lay. 

“ It is too late ; but, for your own sake, you may try. 


l66 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

Approach him nearer, and mark what effect your prox- 
imity has upon him.” 

The Professor glided to the bunk head, and stood 
beside Gilbert. In a moment, his fever broke into 
delirium. 

“Take him at/ay! ” he shrieked, at the pitch of his 
voice. “ He is going to destroy my sight again ! Ah ! 
have pity ! mercy ! What have I done that you should 
torture me like this ? Mercy ! mercy ! O if I could 
only die and end it all ! ” 

“Your presence does not seem to have a soothing 
effect upon the patient, does it?” said John Forest. 

“ No ; I will move further off. Poor lad ! poor lad ! 
But tell me what brought him to such a terrible 
state ? ” 

“ Principally, as I have already said, your own con- 
duct. But the secondary agent was the brutality of a 
vicious comrade, who had a grudge against him — a 
comrade, mind, whom Gilbert would never have associ- 
ated with, unless it had been for you.” 

“Yes, yes; I understand,” replied the Professor in a 
low, quivering tone. 

At this moment an old sailor entered the cabin, and 
sat down by Gilbert’s side. 

“Well, my lad,” he said, tenderly, “ and hows’t be 
this arternoon ? Fairly ? ” 

“ O, no, Bennett ; I am in agony. I believe my 
eyes are both burnt out. I cannot sleep for the pain 
they give me. Shall I ever be well again, do you 
think ? ” 

“Well again, my boy? Aye; well and bonny as 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


167 


ever. But must have a little patience. I know ’tis 
hard to bear — summat awful — aye. But ’twill all be 
over soon, and by the time we touches England’s 
shores agen thou’lt have thy eyesight to greet thy 
mother with ; never fear.” 

I have no mother,” replied Gilbert, mournfully. 

^‘Thy feyther, then.” 

“ I have no father,” repeated the lad, or worse 
than none. If it had not been for my father I should 
never have found myself in this plight. Don’t mention 
him to me, pray.” 

“ Aye, lad, but I thought it wor summat of that sort 
as druv thee to sea. I guessed from the fust minnit I 
clapped eyes on ’un ye wern’t of ourn sort. Too much 
the gennelman, lad ; that’s why they’ve all spited thee 
so sorely. But never heed ’un. Un’s done theer 
wust. Take a drink of this lemonade. I coaxed the 
lemons out of the cook for thee. It’ll freshen thee oop 
a bit.” 

‘‘ How good you are to me, Bennett. What should 
I have done without your kind nursing? It seems 
absurd of me to say so now, but if ever I can repay 
you I will.” 

Most assuredly he should be repaid,” said the Pro- 
fessor to his guide. “Would it not be possible to in- 
fluence Ethel or Madeline to do so ? Is that not 
some of the work spirits are sent back to earth for ? ” 

“Occasionally, but not spirits such as you. You 
have never done a good work yourself yet. How then 
can you hope or expect to be able to influence others 
to do them ? But do not be afraid that Bennett will 


1 68 THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

lose his reward. Every cup of cold water given to a 
suffering fellow-creature in love and charity is noted 
down by the recording angel. He is a good, old 
man, full of kindness and benevolence for all who 
suffer and who are weaker than himself. He will 
shine hereafter as one of the stars in heaven.” 

“ me, lad ? ” said Bennett, in answer to Gil- 

bert’s last words. My best payment would be to see 
thee with a little more hope and courage. Thou’st 
been cruelly treated, and theer’s not a man aboard, as 
is fit to be called a man, as does not feel for thee. The 
capen said something yesterday aboot leaving thee 
ashore in the hospital in Calcutta, and I don’t know as 
it wouldn’t be the best thing for thee. Wot dost think 
thyself ? ” 

“ I don’t want to leave you, Bennett. I shall feel so 
lost, blind and alone, in a hospital in a strange country, 
so far from all I care for.” 

^‘Wouldst rather go back to thy feyther, then?” 
asked the sailor. 

‘‘ Go back to my father ! O what are you talking 
of? I would rather die a thousand deaths than do 
that. He hates me, Bennett. He told me so. He 
broke my poor mother’s heart, and then he dared to 
defame her memory before me^ her son. I struck him 
for it, and there’s an end of all things between us. I 
wish, sometimes, I had killed him instead of only 
striking him. It would have served him right.” 

“No, no, lad; thou mustn’t say that. Feyther’s a 
feyther when all’s said and done. I daresay ’un de- 
served it, but ye mustn’t think o’ thot. Think of the 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. l6g 

sweet mother up above. That’ll bring better thoughts 
than the old devil of a feyther, I know.” 

Bennett, do you think that angels ever return from 
heaven to comfort those they have left behind? For 
I could almost fancy, sometimes, that my mother has 
been about me whilst I have been lying here, blind and 
helpless. I have felt soft touches on my brow, and 
such a soothing sense of peace and quietude. Could 
it be possible that she has revisited me in this sore dis- 
tress ? ” 

Possible, my lad,” replied the seaman. “Aye, I 
wouldn’t say it isn’t ; for my own mother came to see 
me onst when I was in sore trouble, having just 
berried my poor wife, arter she had been in her own 
grave a power of five and twenty years. So I shouldn’t 
think it at all unlikely as thy mother haven’t come, as 
mine did, to try and comfort her poor lad.” 

At that moment the Professor saw the form of Susan 
Clumber at the head of Gilbert’s bed, smiling at her 
son as she laid her spirit hand upon his aching brow. 

“ I seem as if I felt her now,” murmured the boy, 
dreamily, “so soft and gentle and loving. Ah, mother, 
mother, if you had only lived, all this misery would never 
have been. I would have gone away with you, darling 
mother, and we would have lived and worked for each 
other.” 

“ Poor lad ! poor lad ! ” repeated the Professor. “ Tell 
me, John Forest, how soon can we get him out of this 
terrible plight, and send him home ? ” 

“ Gilbert has a penance to perform, as well as you, 
and will have to work it out to the bitter end,” replied 


I/O THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 

his guide. “ He will lie on this sick-bed for several 
weeks more — sometimes raving in delirium, and some- 
times too prostrate with fever to be able either to 
speak or think. The vessel will proceed on her settled 
voyage, returning to England in about five months’ 
time, when Gilbert will hear of your death and rejoin 
his sister and step-mother.” 

“Five months!” repeated the Professor. “Five 
months of this torture and hardship ! But his consti- 
tution will never stand it. He will break down under 
the strain.” 

“ He will, considerably. More than you imagine. 
His eyesight is nearly destroyed. It will be years 
before his eyes are really useful to him again ; and, 
in effect, they will never entirely recover from the 
shock to which they have been subjected. His con- 
stitution, also, will suffer from the hardships he 
has endured aboard this vessel, and he will not be a 
strong man to his life’s end. All this he will owe to 
you, his father, and will remember it against you till 
you meet again. Not a pleasant prospect for a young 
fellow just starting in life, is it ? ” 

“ But is there no remedy? ” exclaimed the Professor. 
“ Can no self-sacrifice on my part undo the evils of 
which I have been guilty ? ” 

“ What idea have you in your head ? What do you 
propose to do ? ” 

The Professor thought for a moment, and then re- 
plied : 

“ If I could, by any possibility, show myself to him 
— spirits have done so before, evidently, by what the 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. I/I 

old sailor said — might not the sight of me, by convinc- 
ing him of my death, make him easier with regard to 
his future ? ” 

“You can try the experiment, if you like,” said John 
Forest; “but I am not very hopeful of the conse- 
quences. Stop a minute. You cannot appear as you 
are now. You would frighten the lad into a premature 
grave. You must clothe yourself.” 

“ But how? I cannot assume mortal habiliments.” 

“You can think of them, and you will appear to be 
clothed with them. What was the most usual dress in 
which your son saw you whilst on earth? ” 

“Why, usually, I think, in a dressing-gown and 
slippers.” 

“ The style of dress a self-indulgent man generally 
assumes. Well, think of your latest dressing-gown 
and slippers, and I will enable him to see you in them. 
Stand there, at the foot of his bed, and I will stand by 
you. When you are ready, I will cause you to ap- 
pear.” 

“ But how do you do it ? ” inquired the Professor, 
curiously. 

“ It is very easy : only like turning on an electric 
light, and turning it off again.” 

“Why cannot I do it for myself, then ? ” 

“ Because something cannot come out of nothing, my 
friend. You have no light to spare from your spiritual 
body. It is pretty well all dark there — only enough 
glimmer to carry on your existence with — and none to 
spare for others. Have you got your dressing-gown 
and slippers on ? ” 


172 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


“ I have thought of them,” replied the Professor. 

In another rninute, Gilbert was heard to exclaim : 

“Good heavens ! There is my father. I am sure of 
it. I could not mistake him — he made me too miser- 
able. Take him away, Bennett, for God’s sake. Don’t 
let him stand there, sneering at me. O ! I am mad. I 
am delirious. But I see him as plainly as ever I did 
in my life.” 

“ Your feyther, young ’un, d’ye say ? Maybe it’s his 
wraith come to warn ye of his death. Gie a good 
look at un. Doe ’e look live-like ? ” 

“ Alive? Yes, far too much alive. Just as he used 
to look in the horrible days that I shudder to think of. 
Go and stand there, Bennett, at the foot of the bunk, 
and shut him out. I cannot bear the sight. It will 
drive me mad.” 

• “ Maybe the poor gentleman has come to tell ’ee 
he’s gone to another world, and to ask ’eeto forgive his 
bad doin’s,” suggested Bennett. But Gilbert would 
not hear of it. 

“ No, no such luck. Nothing of the sort. He isn’t 
one of the kind either to die or to be sorry for what he 
has done. He’s as hard as the nether millstone, I tell 
you. He has no heart, no soul. He never had. If he 
comes again I’ll kill myself and end it.” 

“ I don’t think your apparition has done your son 
much good, do you ?” said John Forest. But the un- 
happy Professor had sunk on his knees and was holding 
up his hands to heaven. 

“ O, my God ! ” he cried. “ Don’t let my son 
suffer any more for my sins. If it be possible, let 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 1 73 

my spirit inhabit his body till he reaches his home 
again, and suffer all that may be before him yet. 
Accept me instead of Gilbert. Let me expiate the sins 
of which I am the instigator.” 

That is very nice of you to suggest,” remarked his 
guide ; but you will find in this world that the 
Almighty Spirit does not accept the sacrifice of one 
man for the sins of another. That would be neither 
just nor satisfactory. What would Gilbert be the 
better for your working out the penance he has in- 
curred ? Would his spirit be purified because yours 
suffered pain and hardship? You don’t understand 
these things yet. But the idea was a good one. It 
was a step in the right direction. I do not despair but 
that you will shorten your own punishment yet.” 

The Professor had become very thoughtful. In his 
mind’s eye he could recall the day when his only son was 
born, and how proud he felt — much as he disliked babies 
and all tender, weak creatures — that he had begotten 
an heir, to live after him, and perhaps inherit his 
powers of mind as well as his worldly wealth. He had 
pictured to himself the little red-faced atom of 
humanity becoming a learned professor or a great 
botanist or physician, or a scientist of some sort — that 
he would educate himself and teach all that he had 
acquired. And then the years had rolled on and the 
education had commenced, and he, the father, had tired 
of the trouble and patience it entailed, and his uncon- 
trollable temper had come in the way, and the child 
had been frightened and alienated and handed over to 
the care of strangers. 


174 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


And this was the end of it. This was his botanist, 
his philosopher, his electrician ; lying, half blinded for 
life, on a miserable, filthy bunk of a trading vessel, 
surrounded by beasts rather than men, and dependent 
for all love and friendship and nursing on an old, un- 
lettered seaman. 

In one moment his spiritual eyes seemed to open — 
the scales fell from them, and he saw himself and his 
past life as they were — abhorrent in the eyes of God, 
as he had made them in the sight of men. He per- 
ceived, as in a nightmare dream, how much too late it 
was to remedy the evil he had done on earth, how it 
would permeate throughout the coming ages, even unto 
the third and fourth generation. He saw Madeline 
led, by her mother’s teachings, to understand how un- 
desirable a marriage with young Reynolds would be ; 
led by his past teachings to fear and distrust all men 
and all unions, except such as would bring her worldly 
gain, until she gave up the idea of marriage altogether, 
and resolved to live only for her brother’s sake. He 
saw Gilbert, that brother, reaching home after many 
trials of health and strength, moral as well as physical, 
half blind and wholly an invalid, unfitted to take his 
place in the world as a man of talent should — ener- 
vated by the hardships he had passed through, and too 
feeble in body and indolent in mind to care to try and 
surmount the difficulties in his path. This was what 
his scientist — his philosopher — his man of fame and 
genius had come to — and all through his fault — the 
fault he had no power to undo. 

He was not permitted to see further into the future 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 1 75 

than this ; to have been shown his children, overcom- 
ing the woful heritage he had bequeathed to them, 
and happily mated to true companions and friends, 
would have been to let him see too much, to have 
made him too well content to trust to the giver of all 
good to let things right themselves at last. But the 
time was not yet come for the Professor to thank God 
for this. 

“ I see it all,” he cried to John Forest, “you need 
point out no more to me. I see myself^ and you could 
show me nothing more hateful to me. How could I 
have been so blind, so deaf, so soulless as not to per- 
ceive the knowledge that might have saved me ? No 
wonder that Susan will not communicate with me ; 
that I made Ethel wretched ; that my own father turns 
from me with abhorrence ; that my children despise my 
memory, and dread the idea of meeting me again. I 
am vile — loathsome — accursed of God and men. My 
mind has been so inflated with the idea of my genius 
that I have sacrificed everything to the bauble fame — 
love and friendship and religion. My acquaintances, 
who pandered to my vanity and conceit, openly ridi- 
cule my absurd pretensions, now that my back is 
turned. One makes love to my widow, and tells her 
her presence was his only attraction to my house — the 
other wants to buy my precious library, on which I 
selfishly spent so much money, whilst I refused my 
wife and children the innocent pleasures their young 
lives required, and insolently says that he would not 
light his fire with the writings which took me so many 
weary hours of thought and labor to compile. And 


76 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


what will be the end of it ? My wife Ethel will marry 
her first love as soon as she decently can, and my 
children — my own flesh and blood — will do their utmost 
to drive all remembrance of me from their hearts. It 
is my doom, but I deserve it. O God, I acknowledge 
the justice of Thy decree : ‘ As ye have sown, so shall 
ye also reap.’ ” 

‘‘That is very true,” replied John Forest; “but, 
fortunately for you, the day for sowing is not yet past, 
and there may be a second harvest to make up for the 
failure of the first.” 

“ I am not worthy to think of, or hope for such a 
reward,” said the penitent Professor ; “ only let me be 
purged, as though by fire, from the body of this sin ; 
let me be made less unworthy to serve the God who 
has done so much for me, and whose goodness I have 
so shamefully requited. I lift mine eyes to where He 
dwells — I long — I aspire to commence my work of puri- 
fication, that when it is finished (however long it may 
endure) I may be fit to take my place amongst the 
lowest of those who serve him. John Forest, my friend 
and guide ! Tell me what I must do to obtain so great 
salvation ? ” 

“ You have found it out for yourself, Henry Aldwyn. 
The words you have just uttered — the first ardent, un- 
selfish prayer that has ever come from your lips, is the 
beginning of your upward progress. From this 
moment, I am empowered by the grace of God to say 
to you : ‘ Arise ! cast off the chains of sin, and begin 
your heavenward course.’ It will not be an easy one, 
but it will be full of hope. Through each trouble you 


THE DEAD MAN'S MESSAGE. 


177 


may have to bear you will keep in mind the glorious 
truth, that every mortal into whose nostrils has been 
breathed the breath of life must live forever, and, liv- 
ing forever, must assuredly reach the throne of God 
at last. Your mission is to remain on this earth, per- 
haps for many, many years, but your work will be 
sweetened by the knowledge that each day will bring 
you nearer home. Go forth then as a fisher of men. 
Use your undoubted talent in influencing them for 
good — in protecting them from evil — in whispering a 
warning into their ears when they are in danger of 
going wrong — a word of advice when they halt be- 
tween two opinions — a sense of peace when they have 
won a victory over themselves. Your mission must lie 
especially amongst your own kith and kin ; for it is they 
whom you have most wronged, by your example and 
precept. It will be great pain to you sometimes, as it 
has already been, but you must be encouraged to bear 
it patiently from the knowledge that without a cross 
there will be no crown — without your purgatory, no 
reward.” 

** And do you leave me, John Forest ? ” 

Such are my orders, since you have no further need 
of my guidance, and must accomplish the rest by 
yourself.” 

I am not, then, to have any companionship during 
the remainder of my earthly pilgrimage ? ” 

“ Are you willing to tread it thus, alone ? ” 

“ I am willing to do anything which the good God 
desires me to do. Am I not his slave henceforward ? ” 
^‘That is well spoken and will not pass unheard. 


178 


THE DEAD MAN’S MESSAGE. 


Since you are willing to do His will, God is also willing 
to do yours. Susan, your first wife, is commissioned 
to remain by your side whilst the Almighty keeps you 
on this earth. She may not speak to you, but you will 
see her and feel her presence wherever you go — her 
influence will lead you aright — and when you have 
attained her altitude she will be conscious it has been 
so, and will welcome you as a friend and fellow-worker. 
For the present, you will both remain near your son. 
He will feel your nearness to him, without being able 
to account for it ; and, gradually, he will come to think 
more kindly of you and the past, which now he shud- 
ders at. Farewell ! My task is ended for the present. 
Doubtless, I shall meet you again before we are re- 
united in the spirit world, but, for the moment, other 
duties call me away. May the blessing of God 
Almighty rest upon you, Henry Aldwyn, now and for 
all eternity.” 

The Professor fell humbly on his knees, hiding his 
face in his hands, and when he looked up again he was 
alone. John Forest had returned to the spirit world, 
but on him there rested a bright ray of sunshine, a 
reflection of the smile which God had smiled upon His 
repentant child. 


THE END. 


White . Cross • Literature • . 


THE OTHER WORLD AND THIS. 

A Compendium of Spiritual Laws, and the most original and instructive 
book of the White Cross Literature. It contains a careful analysis 
of the action of laws governing both states of life, and deals with man 
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Mysterious and interesting are all of the lines of thought advocated, and 
yet so clearly drawn that each individual, no matter what his religion, will 
And something in The Other World and This to educate, instruct and 
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12MO, Cloth, $1.50 


A MAN AND HIS SOUL. By T. C. Craioford, Author [of Senator 
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The century has not produced a romance of more enthralling interest than 
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can life, and drawn by a master-hand. 


12mo, Cloth, Frontispiece, $1.00 


White Cross Literature 


THE DEAD HAN’S HESSAGE. By Florence Marry at. Author of The 
Risen Dead," '•'‘There is no Death," “J. Bankrupt Heart," etc., etc. 

This transcends in intensity and power all of the previous works of this pro- 
lific writer. From beginning to end the reader’s attention is held, not 
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sciousness after death, which is advanced, and the close relationship exist- 
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Professor Aldwyn, a man of indomitable will and unsympathetic nature, 
seemingly falls asleep in his easy chair, after dinner, and awakens to find 
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12mo, Cloth, $1.00 


THE FREED SPIRIT. By Mary Kyle Dallas, Author of “ The Devil's 
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are not only interested in loving us, but are still as alert for our wel- 


White Cross Literature 


fare as when, in mortal garb, they lived in our midst ; frequently giving 
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12mo, Cloth, $1.00 


THE DISAPPEARANCE SYNDICATE AND SENATOR STANLEY’S 
STORY. By T. C. Crawford^ Author of’’'- A Man and His Sold," etc. 

The fact that “ life is full of strange possibilities to those who keep their 
eyes wide open” is more than realized in the interesting incidents so 
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Arthur Livingston, a writer, is much impressed by the number of peculiar 
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Senator Stanley’s Story. 

Senator Stanley depicts the incidents of his remarkable life in a manner to 
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each other in the theory of re-incarnation outlined. Nothing in the Arabian 
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shall not, like Senator Stanley, become gibbering gorillas, gazed at by 
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unfortunates. The Theological Hell sinks into insignificance before this 
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begun to appeal to many students of the Occult. 

This volume is profusely illustrated and elegantly printed on wood-cut 
paper. 


12IVIO, Cloth, Illustrated, $1.25 


White Cross Literature 


A BANKRUPT HEART. A Novel. By Florence Marryat., Author of 
'■'^The Bead Man's Message," ''■How Like a Womaii" "A Scarlet 
Sin," etc. 

So long as the world stands, love and all its intricacies will be the theme 
through which the novelist will seek to help mankind forget itself. 
Florence Marryat has written many interesting stories which have made 
her name almost a household word, wherever the English language is 
spoken ; stories that while they amuse have, at the same time, held a light 
to nature, and taught, through suggestion at least, many a useful lesson. 

In none of her works has she developed a more complicated plot, or 
delineated her characters with more consummate skill than in A Bank- 
rupt Heart. 

Lord Ilfracombe is a fair type of the English nobleman to the manor born, 
who, from his early childhood, has been educated in the theory that what- 
ever would conduce to his pleasure was his by right. He starts out on 
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folly, learns too late that “the wages of sin are death ” ; while Nellie Llew- 
ellyn, who sought to hide her shame beneath the black water of the 
Thames, finds, after trials and struggles unnumbered, that sometimes in 
this world noble striving wins its reward. 

The CamWe of Dumas, or the character of the Second Mrs. Tangueray, are 
not more deftly drawn than is the central figure around which the scenes 
of this life-story revolve. The description of" the lower classes, their simple 
modes of living and honest thinking, are true to life ; and after a perusal 
of its pages, the reader will lay the book down, finding himself fitting the 
situations into experiences with which he is personally familiar, so naturally 
and graphically are they told. 

12mo, Cloth, $1.25 


POST PAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. 


Catalogne of Theosophical, Spiritual and Liberal Publica- 
tions, and Occult and Secular Novels, sent on application. 


CHAS. B. REED, Publisher, 


164, 166 & 168 FULTON STREET, N. Y. 



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